On November 2, 1917, Arthur Balfour, then Foreign Secretary, wrote to Lord Rothschild to say that the British Government viewed with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. The consequences of this statement have reverberated throughout the world in a crescendo of bitterness and violence ever since. It interposed a European (mainly Russian) Jewish cultural idea in an Arab land and it led eventually to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Eleven years before his declaration, Balfour had met the passionate Zionist and emigre chemist Chaim Weizmann while electioneering in Manchester. At the centre of Geoffrey Lewis's compelling book is the story of this encounter and the developing relationship between these two men: the Zionist and the Zealot, so different from each other, yet drawn together by forces that neither quite understood, with consequences that were to have a profound effect on the modern world.
- ISBN10 6612875445
- ISBN13 9786612875441
- Publish Date 31 March 2009
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 14 September 2011
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Continuum International Publishing
- Format eBook
- Pages 224
- Language English