text: In 1917, Lord Curzon, a British cabinet member, as part of deliberations on what would be knows as Balfour Declaration, wrote a memorandum expressing concern about what would become of the Arab inhabitants of Palestine who had "occupied the country for the best part of 1,500 years" and would "not be content either to be expropriated for Jewish immigrants, or to act merely as hewers of wood and drawers of water to the latter." British cabinet approved the Balfour Declaration, which stated the government support for the "establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people nothing shall be done to prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine".