The Century-Long Con Game: How the world's greatest powers turned Palestine into their personal Chess hoard

Picture this: Youre a real estate agent in 1917, and you've just sold the same house to three different families. Each buyer has a signed contract, each believes they're the rightful owner, and all three families are about to show up with moving trucks on the same day. Welcome to Palestine, courtesy of the British Empire's most spectacular diplomatic swindle.

- BY C. A, Saliya

When Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced last month that his country would recognise a Palestinian state—joining a growing club that now includes the UK, France, and Canada—he wasn't just making headlines. He was adding another chapter to what might be history's longest-running political thriller.

But here's the kicker: this isn't ancient history. The same con game that started over a century ago is still being played today, with the same marks falling for the same tricks (old wine in new bottles).

Before World War I, Palestine was just another sleepy province in the crumbling Ottoman Empire—think of it as the Middle Eastern equivalent of a forgotten village in Moneragala or Badulla. Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived side by side in what you might charitably call "managed chaos." It wasn't suwvar abhumi (golden land), but it worked.

Then came the game-changers: waves of Jewish immigrants fleeing Russian pogroms in the 1880s, armed with European money, modern farming techniques, and a revolutionary idea called Zionism—the notion that Jews needed their own homeland. Meanwhile, nationalism was brewing among intellectuals who were getting fed up with Turkish rule.

Here's what your history textbook probably didn't tell you: British intelligence was already sniffing around, cultivating relationships with both sides like someone playing double game. They knew the Ottoman Empire was on life support and were positioning themselves for the inheritance battle.

Enter the Balfour Declaration—76 words that would reshape the world. On November 2, 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour penned a letter supporting a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, while promising to protect the rights of "existing non-Jewish communities."