The British government therefore issued the Balfour Declaration on November 2, 1917, in the form of a letter to a British Zionist leader from the foreign secretary Arthur J. Balfour "His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."