al-Nakba: the Palestinian "Catastrophe"

The Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917 was issued a year before the end of WWI.  The declaration consisted of a letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Jewish community leader Baron Rothschild for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland, reflecting the position of the British Cabinet about establishing a Jewish "national home" in Palestine.  It was a very brief, non-specific policy statement:

"His Majesty's government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may 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."

The conspicuous omission in this statement is any reference to the political rights of non-Jewish communities, which represented 90% of the Palestinian population at that time.

Why was it written?  Under the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement between France and England regarding division of Ottoman territories upon their anticipated defeat, England would be assigned administration of Palestine. The World Zionist Organization (WZO) had their eye on Palestine, and was both motivated and able to cut a deal when the opportunity arose. 

According to Col. T.E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") who led Arab forces against the Ottomans in WWI upon British assurance that they would be granted their own countries under the British mandate should Britain prevail, the declaration was a reward to the WZO for "bringing America into the war" and financing the war effort when Britain was facing potential defeat under intensive German submarine attacks against incoming supply ships in early 1917. Thus Britain had promised the same land to two different allies, one already living there and one wanting to.  

The Zionist Organization of America immediately sprang into action, and wealthy Jewish-American financier Bernard Baruch has been credited for orchestrating the breakneck U.S. mobilization for war that saved the day.
 
Despite its overwhelmingly non-Jewish population, London Zionist movement leaders Chaim Weizmann and Nahum Sokolow had requested reconstitution of Palestine as “the Jewish national home" and were disappointed at this weaker statement.  Their disappointment notwithstanding, this declaration is frequently cited as the original legal authority by Zionists and their supporters for their seizure of Palestine by force, but of course the language shown in red text is never mentioned.  

The Balfour Declaration language was incorporated into the League of Nations mandate assigning Britain to administer Palestine during transition to independent statehood.  To fulfill this pledge during the mandate period between world wars, Britain permitted heavy Jewish immigration increasing the Jewish population from one-tenth to one-third of Palestine, which precipitated strong Arab resistance culminating in the Arab revolt of 1936-1939.  British suppression of this revolt and disarming of the Arabs left them vulnerable to the ethnic cleansing by Zionist terrorism that ensued following WWII.