Foreign Office

                                             November 2nd, 1917,

Dear Lord Rothschild,

   I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's

Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist

aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

            "His Majesty's Government view with favour the

        establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish

        people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the

        achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that

        nothing shall be done to prejudice the civil and religious

        rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the

        rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

   I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge

of the Zionist Federation.

                                Yours sincerely,

				     ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR

		    OPPOSITION TO THE BALFOUR DECLARATION

   In March, 1923, the British House of Lords voted 50 to 29 to reveal the

secret McMahon/Sharif Hussein Agreement, which contradicted the Balfour Decla-

ration. During the debate, several members said the Balfour Declaration was a

clear contradition of promises made to the Arabs. Lord Grey, who was Prime

Minister when the McMahon/Hussein agreements were pledged, stated:

   `I think the most honorable thing would be to look at them fairly, see

    what inconsistencies between them and having regard to the nature of each

    pledge and the date at which it was given, with all the facts before us,

    consider what is the fair thing to be done.'

Responded Lord Buchmasters:

   `They show unmistakably that there has not been, as noble Viscount Lord

    Grey suggested, something in the nature of a casual inconsistency between

    different announcements at different times, but that a deliberate pledge

    has been given on the one hand, which has been abandoned by the other.'

The Maugham Commission Report of March 16, 1939, signed by the Anglo-American

Committee members, also concluded Britain was `not free to dispose of Palestine

without regard for the wishes & the interests of all the inhabitants of Pales-

tine.'

     But U.S. President Woodrow Wilson made the strongest statement, on July 4,

1918, 6 months after the Balfour Declaration was signed:

    `The settlement of every question, whether of territory, of sovereignty,

     of economic arrangement, or political relationship, rests upon the basis

     of free acceptance of that settlement by the people immediately concerned,

     and not upon the basis of material interest or advantage of any other

     nation or people which may desire a different settlement for the sake of

     its own exterior influence or mastery. If that principle is to rule, and

     so the wishes of Palestine's population are to be decisive as to what is

     to be done in Palestine, then it is to be remembered that the non-Jewish

     population of Palestine -- nearly 9/10ths of the whole -- are

     emphatically against the entire ZIonist program. The tables show that

     there was no one thing upon which the population of Palestine were more

     agreed upon than this. To subject a people so minded to unlimited Jewish

     immigration, and to steady financial and social pressure to surrender the

     land, would be a gross violation of the principle just quoted, and of the

     People's right, though it is kept within the forms of the law.'

     Ernest Bevin, then British Foreign Secretary, wrote on Feb. 25, 1947, 30

years later, `There is no denying the fact the Mandate contained contradictory

promises. In the first place, it promised the Jews a National Home and in the

second place, it declared the rights and the positions of the Arabs must be

protected. Therefore, it provided what was virtually an invasion of the country

by thousands of immigrants and, at the same time, said that this was not to

disturb the people in possession.'