He continued: “Foreign people were brought [here] who have no connection to this land. Neither historically nor religiously. They were… planted… like thorns… Balfour did not love the Jews. He was – [like those] called antisemites… He… wanted to be rid of the Jews. [Therefore] he issued this [Balfour Declaration]."In recent months, Palestinian Media Watch recorded other examples of Palestinian academics appearing on official PA TV, claiming that there was no evidence of Jewish life in Israel before 1948.
Arthur Balfour and Theodor Herzl are considered two major figures in the history of Zionism. Herzl was a Jewish journalist from Austro-Hungary; a playwright, political activist and writer who was the father of modern Political Zionism. He wrote the first blueprint of the Zionist movement, Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), and Altneuland (The Old New Land).
Balfour was a former British prime minister and foreign secretary, who famously issued the Balfour Declaration in 1917, announcing support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine (then under Ottoman rule).
The Balfour Declaration served as the important document for the Zionist movement, providing the framework for a Jewish state after the onset of the British Mandate in Palestine following World War I.