A NEOCLASSICAL REALIST EXPLANATION OF THE BALFOUR DECLARATION AND THE ORIGINS OF THE BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN PALESTINE

A number of developments in the first quarter of the 20th century have an important role in shaping the Middle East. The Sharif Hussein-Mc Mahon Negotiations, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the Balfour Declaration and other secret agreements between Britain and France that emerged during the First World War deeply affected the subsequent period of Arab geography. The Balfour Declaration in 1917 can be called one of the founding texts of Israel. In this respect, the declaration has a great impact on all the Middle Eastern politics, especially Palestine. It will not be wrong to say that the Palestine issue, which has become one of the most important problems of the region in time, has its roots in the Balfour Declaration. For this reason, cognizance of the Balfour Declaration and Britain's Palestinian politics after the First World War is crucial to understand the region's later history. From this point of view, this article attempts to examine the regional policies of Britain through the declaration and to provide a causality for the emergence of the declaration. What is the key motivation behind the Balfour Declaration? How can one explain the emergence of the declaration only in 1917, although it came to the agenda in Britain as early as 1915? This study claims that a particular set of internal and external factors associated with British politics gave rise to the declaration. The present article dissects these factors from the perspective of neoclassical realist theory and evaluate the systemic modifiers and unit-level variables in order to explain the Balfour Declaration. Specifically, it examines decision-making process behind the declaration from a systematic and holistic perspective.