A one-page letter in 1917 promised the same land to two different peoples
In November 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour wrote a brief letter to Zionist leader Lord Rothschild declaring that Britain 'view[ed] with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,' while adding that nothing should prejudice the rights of 'existing non-Jewish communities' there. Issued while Britain didn't yet control Palestine, the 67-word letter helped shape a century of competing claims to the same territory.