Thursday night, CNN outdid itself in the art of biased reporting. Jonathan Mann anchored a program on the Palestinian-Israeli stalemate. After talking to two Washington researchers on the Middle East, he ended his program by stating that British PM Tony Blair's recent visit to the Middle East was very significant as it coincided with the anniversary of the Balfour declaration, in which England gave the Jews a homeland in Palestine, "taking it away from the Palestinians!"

Well, Jonathan, let me enlighten you on the Balfour Declaration. It was issued on November 2, 1917 as a private letter from Lord Balfour, the British foreign secretary to Lord Rothschild -- who was a British citizen.

The declaration states that Britain views with "favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish People... it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities."

Britain at that time, was not the governing authority of "Palestine." A place called Palestine did not even exist. The area that would be later called Palestine was part of the Turkish Empire -- together with the whole Middle East. (It had been so for 400 years!) Its population, which was nearly 40% Jewish (Jerusalem was 70% Jewish!), saw themselves as part of the Turkish Empire.

Britain, in the throes of WW I, was engaged in an attempt to strengthen the anti-German-Turkish alliance it had created. To do this it promised the Arabs the creation of independent Arab states (Later called Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, etc.) and the Jews of Palestine were promised a "homeland" in part of "Palestine" -- mainly to preempt a German declaration in favor of a homeland for the Jews of Palestine.

The only way to get from the historical facts to the statement that Jonathan Mann made: "Britain took the Palestinian homeland and gave it to the Jews," is to assume that viewers are ignorant idiots.

Is that how CNN perceives us?