La dichiarazione Balfour alle origini dello stato di Israele e del moderno Medio Oriente

November 2, 2017 marked the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, one of the most important political declarations of modern times: its reverberations continue to be felt to this days. While the World War I was raging and no one knew which side would win, the British government, led by Prime Minister David Lloyd George, released a declaration bearing the name of Arthur Balfour, the foreign secretary. The Balfour Declaration promised to support “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,” so long as that did not “prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities” there. That short document (its crucial paragraph contains 67 words) laid the foundation of modern Israel.