In April, we commemorate the 100th anniversary of when Jewish historic rights to the land of Israel became Jewish legal rights! The San Remo Conference, convened in Italy from April 19 until April 26, 1920, converted the Balfour Declaration of 1917 into a binding international treaty, setting the stage for the League of Nations Mandate, which was approved in 1922. The foundation of Jewish legal rights established through San Remo were preserved in Article 80 of the UN Charter in 1945.
In April 2020, the Jewish people will be commemorating the 100th anniversary of the San Remo Conference, convened in Italy from April 19 until April 26, 1920, in the aftermath of the First World War. British Prime Minister Lloyd George and his minister of foreign affairs, Lord Curzon, attended along with the prime ministers of France and Italy.
Representatives of Belgium, Greece, and Japan also took part. They constituted what was called the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers. Most people have heard of the other great postwar conferences, like the Paris Peace Conference or the Geneva Conferences at the end of World War II. But San Remo has not been on many people’s radar screens, despite the fact that it created the geographic basis of the modern Middle East for most of the 20th century.