Ma’an, a Palestinian news agency, wrote on Friday, the 90th anniversary of the issuance of the Balfour Declaration, that “Despite the condition that the creation of the Jewish homeland should not prejudice the rights of Palestinian communities, that ill-fated decision has led to a continuing state of conflict, the deaths of thousands of people and created a huge refugee problem, with many Palestinians exiled from their ancestral homeland”. The Ma’an article on the 90th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration is here.
On the same day, Kol Israel Radio reported “Minister Isaac Herzog [Minister of Welfare and Social Services, Minister of the Diaspora, Society, and Fight Against Antisemitism] will speak about the declaration at Sunday’s cabinet meeting. Herzog said the event is an important historical milestone towards the creation of the state of Israel. Herzog will also participate in an event in Tel Aviv on Monday, together with British Ambassador Tom Philps, marking the anniversary”. The Kol Israel report on the 90th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration is here.
Ma’an called the Balfour Declaration “117 words that changed the face of the Middle East”.
The Balfour Declaration is a typed letter, signed by then-British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, and addressed to a member of the British Parliament, Lord Walter Rothschild, a leader of the Jewish community in Britain, at the height of the First World War.
It is a “declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations”, and was approved by the British cabinet.
The image above was found on the website of
the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs here.
It says that “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 existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country”.
Continue reading The Balfour Declaration – 90 years ago today