“A person can only be born in one place. However, he may die several times elsewhere: in the exiles and prisons, and in a homeland transformed by the occupation and oppression into a nightmare.”
— Mahmoud Darwish

The Balfour Declaration was a letter written on November 2, 1917, by British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lionel Walter Rothschild, in which he expressed the British
government’s support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine states:

 “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.”

The long-term effects of the Balfour Declaration, and the British government’s involvement in Palestinian affairs are felt even today. The declaration, in the words of Mahmoud Abbas, cannot be forgotten. A further dent to the Palestinian cause is the efforts on the part of certain Muslim countries to normalise ties with Israel.