Balfour Declaration: 104 years since the theft of land and identity

104 years have passed since the fateful Balfour Declaration was announced, according to which Britain granted the right to the Jews to establish a national home for them in Palestine, based on the false statement "a land without a people for a people without a land."

This anniversary comes and the Palestinian people are still suffering from the displacement, land robbery, and the plans of annexation and settlement that did not stop in all the occupied Palestinian territories, in addition to the continuing crimes of murder, torture and siege.

It also comes in light of unprecedented challenges facing the Palestinian cause in order to liquidate it, and in the context of some Arab regimes rushing towards normalization with Israel.

On this day in 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour sent a letter to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild, one of the leaders of the Zionist movement at the time, to be known later as the "Balfour Declaration".

The text of the letter stated that "His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will make every effort to facilitate the achievement of this end."

"It is clearly understood that nothing will be done that would detract from the civil and religious rights enjoyed by the non-Jewish communities now residing in Palestine, or the rights or political status enjoyed by Jews in other countries," it followed.

The promise was issued and the number of Jews in Palestine does not exceed 5% of the total population. The letter was sent before the British army occupied Palestine.

Supporters of the Palestinian cause describe the promise as "a promise of the one who does not own to the one who does not deserve."

The Balfour Declaration was the first step for the West on the path to establishing an entity for the Jews on the land of Palestine, in response to the desires of global Zionism at the expense of a people rooted in this land for thousands of years.

The promise came after three years of negotiations between the British government on the one hand, and British Jews and the World Zionist Organization on the other.

Through those negotiations, the Zionists were able to convince Britain of their ability to achieve the latter's goals and preserve its interests in the region, and as soon as the promise was announced, the countries of Europe, led by America, France, and Italy, rushed to declare their support for it.

On April 25, 1920, the Supreme Council of Allied Powers agreed at the San Remo Conference to entrust Britain with the Mandate for Palestine, and to put the Balfour Declaration into practice as stated in Article Two of the Mandate.

On July 24, 1922, the Council of the League of Nations approved the draft Mandate, which entered into force on September 29, 1923.

Britain sent a letter to Sharif Hussein, via Colonel Bast, in which the British government affirmed that it would not allow Jewish settlement in Palestine except as much as what is consistent with the interest of the Arab population, in terms of economic and political terms.

It also issued its orders to the British military administration ruling in Palestine, to obey the orders of the Jewish Committee that arrived in Palestine at that time headed by Chaim Weizmann, the successor of "Herzl".

As for the Palestinian people, they fought revolutions, the first of which was the Al-Buraq Revolution in 1929, then the 1936 Revolution.

In 1948, Britain handed over Palestine, by allowing "Zionist armed organizations" to control Palestinian lands on which they established what they called the state of Israel, in what was known to Palestinians as the "Nakba", and then three-quarters of Palestine fell under Israeli control, while Jordan ruled the West Bank and Gaza Strip fell under the Egyptian authority.

Over the past decades, the official and popular Palestinian levels have called on the British government to provide an official apology for the disaster that befell them as a result of the "Balfour Declaration", but the latter refuses to do so.

Despite all the tragedies, massacres and displacement, the Palestinians have proven their adherence to their land and their right to it, refusing to recognize the ominous promise and its disastrous results.

Source : Safa