It’s an unimpressive piece of paper, just one page of double-spaced typescript, headed “Foreign Office November 2nd, 1917” and signed in black ink with a scratchy pen by “Arthur James Balfour”. It’s also one of the prize possessions of the British Library.
What became known as the “Balfour Declaration” was a single sentence of 67 words, which contained two important pledges and two equally important qualifications. It read:
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