According to the Narrative, the powers that allied with Britain turned the Balfour Declaration from a commitment by Britain alone into a commitment from the international community. This transformation, it is said, occurred in 1920. One hundred years later, this element of the Narrative gained new attention, when it was spelled out as part of a campaign to explain the legitimacy of Israel. The campaign was timed to the centenary of a meeting of the Principal Allied Powers in 1920, held in Italy. The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs produced a video about that meeting featuring Center director, Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations. Gold was asked about “the signing of the San Remo resolution,” and what could be done to make that event better known. Gold replied that the need was to “get a photocopy of it and make sure it's on the desk of every UN delegate.”

San Remo was the town on the Italian Riviera where the meeting was held. What occurred at the San Remo meeting that was so momentous? “San Remo converted the Balfour Declaration into a binding international treaty,” Gold wrote in the Jerusalem Post, “setting the stage for the League of Nations Mandate that was approved in 1922.” “British prime minister Lloyd George and his foreign affairs minister Lord Curzon, attended along with the prime ministers of France and Italy,” Gold explained. “Representatives of Belgium, Greece, and Japan also took part. Together they constituted what was called the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers.”

A meeting as described by Gold did take place in San Remo in April 1920. And there would be activity in the League of Nations two years later, as we shall see in coming chapters, though not exactly what Gold described. The purpose of the meeting at San Remo was to agree on a text to propose to Turkey as a peace treaty. Britain and France had their sights on Turkey's Arab provinces. They were agreed on demanding that Turkey give up the Arab provinces and renounce sovereignty in favor of the Principal Allied Powers.