commitment was written in the form of a letter from british foreign secretary arthur balfour to walter rothschild. one month after the publication of the balford declaration in 1 , he captured jerusalem. along with general allen bay, the jewish company that was created under the british brigade also entered the city. one of the members of this group was david ben gurion. who later became the first prime minister of israel. at this time, about 50,000 jews lived in palestine. that is, only 10 percentage of half a million muslim and christian population in this land. world war i ended in 1918 and the victorious powers prepared to divide the middle east according to the sykes-picot agreement. preparations for the 1999 peace conference in paris. british prime minister lloyd george and foreign minister arthur balfour represented britain. a delegation from the zionist organization led by haim vaizman also participated in this conference. the arab regions under the rule of the ottoman empire were divided between england and france, according to which palestine was part of britain. they presented a plan i