World War 1 & the Balfour Declaration

After the death of Theodor Herzl in 1904, British-Jewish biochemist Chaim Weizmann was determined to carry out Herzl’s vision of international support for a Jewish homeland in what was then Palestine. 

With World War I raging and the Jews of the Land of Israel suffering greatly under Ottoman rule, Weizmann petitioned the British and persuaded many, including Winston Churchill, of the urgency to declare Israel as the Jewish homeland. 

On October 31, 1917, Herzl’s dream came closer to realization when the British Parliament expressed Britain's official support of a Jewish homeland in Palestine through the Balfour Declaration.