It is commonly claimed that the Balfour Declaration was issued because of war time needs, such as getting America in the war or, keeping control of the Suez Canal and the route to India. These were the reasons given during the war and after in official documents. Once the war had been won they were of little relevance. Moreover, some in government, found themselves unable to identify the strategic case for Palestine.
William Mathew (1) writing recently states: ‘Such was the looseness and imprecision of British thinking on Levantine affairs that as late as March 1923 the Duke of Devonshire, as colonial secretary, found himself unable to answer a query in the House of Lords as to the strategic case for holding Palestine.’
Geoffrey Alderman (2) in 2012 dismisses several potential strategic reasons and gives his own opinions:
‘It has been alleged that the Declaration was intended to garner American support for the British war effort against Germany. But the USA had declared war on Germany several months previously, partly as a result of German submarine activity against American shipping. It has also been said that the Balfour Declaration was part of a desperate attempt to keep Russia in the war against Germany. But the Bolshevik Revolution the previous month virtually guaranteed that Russia would make a separate, albeit humiliating, peace with Germany.
The idea has also been floated that the Declaration was a way of thanking the Manchester-based chemist Chaim Weizmann for his wartime work assisting in the manufacture of explosives. This is fanciful nonsense.
The Balfour Declaration was born out of religious sentiment. Arthur Balfour was a Christian mystic who believed that the Almighty had chosen him to be an instrument of the Divine Will, the purpose of which was to restore the Jews to their ancient homeland — perhaps as a precursor to the Second Coming of the Messiah.
The Declaration was thus intended to assist in the fulfilment of biblical prophecy. This appealed to Lloyd George, whose private immorality did not prevent him from believing in the prophecies of a Bible he knew inside out……’
(1) British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, The Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate, 1917–1923: British Imperialist Imperatives, William M. Mathew 03 Jul 2013.
(2) Jewish Chronicle Nov 8th 2012