On July 24th, 1922, the League of Nations ratified the Balfour Declaration. The ratification of the Balfour Declaration was an important step for the Zionist movement and the effort to create a Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael. The declaration by the League of Nations came after nearly five years of organizing and appeals by Zionist organizations. It stated an intent to establish a Jewish State in what was at the time British Mandatory Palestine; It also recognized Jerusalem as the holiest city in Judaism. Throughout World War I, Jewish leaders in London advocated for Great Britain’s assistance in recognising Jewish sovereignty in the Holy Land. By 1917, British foreign secretary, Sir Arthur Balfour, signed a letter to Lionel Walter Rotschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, a leader in the British Jewish community, stating Great Britain’s support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The letter came after years of relented pleas by the future President of Israel, and President of the World Zionist Congress, Chaim Wietzmann. To many, this was seen as reparations to Weitzmann for his creation of synthetic acetone which proved crucial to the British war effort. The declaration recognized existing non-Jewish inhabitants of British Mandatory Palestine and insisted that no prejudice shall be done to those people in establishing a Jewish State. It also acknowledged that Jews could continue to hold and pursue rights and political status in other countries.By July 1922, Britain had formally presented plans for Palestine. They included Balfour's letter to Rothschild and the future establishment of the Jewish State in that plan, signaling that an official Jewish state could be on the horizon. By this time, the Allied Powers had all endorsed Balfour's letter. The League of Nations incorporated the Balfour Declaration into its Articles of the Palestine Mandate, and the United Kingdom facilitated the development of a Jewish home. In return, Britain would be able to pursue its own economic interest in the region, specifically by controlling the Suez Canal. They viewed their contribution to the Zionist movement as a mutually beneficial agreement. Despite the ratification, the Jewish State was not established in 1922. Instead, the British continued to maintain power in Mandatory Palestine while allowing Jewish immigrants to trickle in. In 1939, with the onset of World War II, Britain modified the Jewish immigration policy into the region that had been used by the League of Nations. The new policy squashed the Zionist hopes by putting in a limitation of no more than 75,000 additional Jewish immigrants; the cap could only be exceeded if the local Arabs consented to higher immigration counts. That pivot marked the beginning of an armed struggle by Jewish militias against the British. The British worked to pit Jews and Arabs against each other to maintain control. This strategy worked until the end of World War II, when Britain finally agreed to withdraw.