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How 67 Words Have Divided the Middle East for the Last 100 Years

United States Library of Congress
British troops on parade at Jaffa Gate during the capture and occupation of Palestine in December 1917.

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, which led to the establishment of Israel and the Palestinian territories. The letter was sent on behalf of the British government to a Jewish community leader, expressing the government's support of a Jewish home state, and a century later, its 67 words have just as much impact.

Edwin Black is a investigative journalist and author and the son of Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust. He returns to Southwest Florida for a talk at Ave Maria School of Law tomorrow afternoon and joins Gulf Coast Live today to explore the historical underpinnings of the declaration.

Rachel Iacovone is a reporter and associate producer of Gulf Coast Live for WGCU News. Rachel came to WGCU as an intern in 2016, during the presidential race. She went on to cover Florida Gulf Coast University students at President Donald Trump's inauguration on Capitol Hill and Southwest Floridians in attendance at the following day's Women's March on Washington.Rachel was first contacted by WGCU when she was managing editor of FGCU's student-run media group, Eagle News. She helped take Eagle News from a weekly newspaper to a daily online publication with TV and radio branches within two years, winning the 2016 Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Award for Best Use of Multimedia in a cross-platform series she led for National Coming Out Day. She also won the Mark of Excellence Award for Feature Writing for her five-month coverage of an FGCU student's transition from male to female.As a WGCU reporter, she produced the first radio story in WGCU's Curious Gulf Coast project, which answered the question: Does SWFL Have More Cases of Pediatric Cancer?Rachel graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University with a bachelor's degree in journalism.