One hundred and eight years have passed since Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, the letter that promised a homeland to one people while dispossessing another. What was framed in 1917 as an act of diplomacy reshaped the fate of an entire nation, turning Palestine from a land of coexistence into one of displacement, fragmentation, and unending loss.

When Arthur Balfour penned his message to Lord Rothschild, Jews made up barely five per cent of Palestine’s population. Yet that letter, written before Britain had even occupied the territory, became the cornerstone of a colonial design that transformed the political map of the Middle East. It set into motion a chain of events leading to the Nakba of 1948, when more than 750,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled from their homes, and to the decades of dispossession and statelessness that followed. A century later, that same injustice endures in the expansion of settlements, the confiscation of land, and the denial of sovereignty to an entire people.

Calls for Britain to face its historical responsibility have grown louder, with Palestinian voices urging an apology and reparations for the suffering that began with a single signature. London’s formal recognition of the State of Palestine in 2025 was welcomed, but many view it as symbolic unless accompanied by genuine accountability and an end to complicity in policies that perpetuate occupation and inequality. For Palestinians, remembrance of the Balfour Declaration is not about history alone, it is about the ongoing reality of exile, siege, and a struggle for self-determination that remains unfinished.