How did a chemical reaction lead to the Balfour Declaration?

107 years ago a letter was written by then British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Walter Rothschild, the Zionist figurehead of the British Jewish community.

This ambiguous letter dated November 2, 1917, which had no legal status, is all that is presently known as the Balfour Declaration.

Balfour said in the letter that the British government would facilitate the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.

However, the national home was interpreted and realised as a state by Zionists and soon brought an upheaval in the lives of Palestinians.

Uganda Scheme

Joseph Chamberlain, the British colonial secretary, had previously promised Zionists the Guas Ngishu plateau in East Africa, close to Nairobi, for a Jewish colony under British rule in 1903.

This scheme, known as the "Uganda Scheme," was a reaction to anti-Semitic pogroms in Russia.

The given land was deemed appropriate because of its relative seclusion within the Mau Forest.

In a 1905 convention, Zionist leadership, however, rejected this idea and persisted in advocating for a homeland in Palestine, which was then a part of the Ottoman Empire.

After Britain declared war on the Ottomans in 1914, the Zionists sensed an opportunity and began to lobby more vigorously for a homeland in Palestine.

The British as is evident from their political manoeuvres in that era wished to dismantle the Ottoman Empire and incorporate parts of it within the British Empire and propelled the infamous,1917 Balfour Declaration.

As a result of the Balfour Declaration, thousands of European Jews moved to Palestine.

By the 1930s Jews formed armed gangs and began to commit violence against Palestinians and displace them.

The chemistry connection

Arthur Balfour was a British politician, best remembered for his strong support of Zionism.

Balfour served as prime minister for three years until 1905 and as foreign secretary from 1916 to 1919.

In 1906, Balfour met and was impressed by Chaim Weizmann, a Russian-Jewish chemist, who had been a Zionist lobbyist in England.

After accepting a science job at the University of Manchester in 1904, Weizmann made England his home.

By creating a method to extract acetone solvent from maize, he helped the British munitions industry, which was in desperate need of acetone in 1916, during World War I.

Acetone was used to mask the smoke and fumes of artillery fire to avoid detection and location of artillery barrels.

Balfour Declaration was a reward for Weizmann's chemical assistance to the British.

Weizmann later became the first president of Israel.

The synthesis of Acetone continues to haunt Palestinians to this day, as the present Israel's war in Gaza now on its 393rd day has killed at least 43,259 people and wounded more than 101,820, with another 10,000 feared buried under debris.