TODAY IN HISTORY
November 2, 1917: The Balfour Declaration is issued. In a letter to Walter Rothschild, British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour expressed the British government’s support for “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. Balfour’s letter was less committal than Rothschild and other Zionist leaders wanted, in that he did not express support for making Palestine a “Jewish state.” Nevertheless the declaration became the basis of British policy in Mandatory Palestine moving forward and is a major milestone in the eventual creation of the state of Israel.
November 2, 1964: Saudi King Saud bin Abdulaziz is ousted in an intra-family coup. Saud and his brother/crown prince, Faisal, had been engaged in a power struggle since their father’s death in 1953, a struggle that Faisal really won earlier in the year when he and the rest of the ruling family stripped Saud of his authority and forced him to name Faisal as his regent. Saud’s mismanagement of the country, along with concerns that he was losing the “Arab Cold War” to Gamal Abdel Nasser and republicanism, led to his marginalization and ultimately removal from power. Finally in November the ruling family officially deposed Saud and made Faisal king.
MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
The Israeli military (IDF) killed at least five people in Gaza on Monday, four in a number of airstrikes throughout the territory and the fifth in an apparent shooting in the southern Khan Younis area. In the West Bank, the IDF ended its 11 day siege of Hebron on Monday. That operation displaced thousands of Palestinians and dealt severe damage to one of the city’s neighborhoods.
