What if Wales had been offered to the Jews as a homeland?
One hundred years ago, the Balfour Declaration backed Palestine as a Jewish homeland. Imagining if history had taken another turn offers a fresh perspective
Tuesday 31 October 2017 18:15 UTC
On 2 November 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour sent a letter to Lord Walter Rothschild, a prominent zionist, which became known as the Balfour Declaration.
In it, the British government promised Palestine to the Zionists - and did so without consulting Palestinians, British Jews, or the wider British population. While Palestinian Arabs at the time made up 90 per cent of the territory's 700,000 population, they were bizarrely only referred to as "existing non-Jewish communities". The letter also said "that nothing should be done to prejudice" their "civil and religious rights".