On November 2, 1917, a British official named Arthur Balfour wrote a letter that was only sixty-seven words long. That short letter changed history. It was called the Balfour Declaration. In it, the British government said it would support creating a homeland for Jewish people in a region called Palestine. For centuries, Jewish people had faced persecution in countries across Europe. They were forced out of their homes, treated unfairly, and sometimes attacked. Many dreamed of returning to the land their ancestors had lived in thousands of years before. But Palestine was not empty. Arab families had lived there for generations. They farmed the land, built villages, and raised their children there. The declaration made the Arab population nervous. Britain was promising land that other people already called home. World War I was still being fought when the letter was written. Britain hoped to gain allies by supporting different groups at the same time. The promise in the Balfour Declaration would lead to decades of conflict between Jewish and Arab communities over who had the right to the land.