Posted on 05/26/2005 5:36:17 PM PDT by wagglebee
NEW YORK - A draft of the Balfour Declaration, the 1917 document in which Britain expressed support for a Jewish state, is to be auctioned next month.
The draft was handwritten by Leon Simon, an English Zionist leader, at a meeting on July 17, 1917, of the Zionist Political Committee at London's Imperial Hotel, Sotheby's auction house said Tuesday in a news release.
It is the only known surviving handwritten draft of the declaration, Sotheby's said. Written on hotel stationery and using some abbreviations, it reads:
"H(is) M(ajesty's) G(overnment) accepts the principle that P(alestine) should be reconstituted as the Nat(ional) Home of the J(ewish) P(eople). HMG will use its best efforts to secure the achievement of this object, and will discuss the necessary methods and means with the Z(ionist) O(rganization)."
The Balfour Declaration was issued Nov. 2, 1917, by British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour. It reads:
"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 draft is among 175 documents from the Simon estate being sold June 16. Sotheby's estimated the lot will sell for between $500,000 and $800,000, not including a premium.
Also among the documents is a typed draft of the declaration that another Zionist, Harry Sacher, began in June 1917.
Israel Ping
This could get interesting.
I can't afford it. Barbara Streisand doesn't want it. Someone will buy it.
Maybe some Saudi prince will buy it and flush it down the crapper.
Then we can all riot and kill people.
hehehe...that was funny....
If I can find it, perhaps my old post, the PA finance minister buying art for a Saudi Princess, not a Prince, gender ok, PA (aka US) budget expenditure initialed by Yasser. Israel should have just bugged Orient House, and left it open.
COOL rack ittt
I want see that document
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