100 years on: Palestinians insist on UK apology over Balfour

Today, Palestinians around the world mark 100 years since the Balfour Declaration, a British statement of support to establish “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a minority Jewish population. The statement came in the form of a letter, dated November 2, 1917, from Britain’s then-foreign secretary, Lord […]

Today, Palestinians around the world mark 100 years since the Balfour Declaration, a British statement of support to establish “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a minority Jewish population.

The statement came in the form of a letter, dated November 2, 1917, from Britain’s then-foreign secretary, Lord Arthur Balfour, addressed to Lionel Walter Rothschild, a figurehead of the British Jewish community.

The Declaration reads, “His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

Unlike the rest of the post-war mandates, the British mandate was set up in a way to equip Jews with the tools to establish self-rule, at the expense of the Palestinian Arabs.

Upon the start of the mandate, the British began to facilitate the immigration of European Jews to Palestine. Between 1922 and 1935, the Jewish population rose from nine percent to nearly 27 percent of the total population.

The Balfour Declaration is widely seen as the precursor to the 1948 Palestinian Nakba when Zionist armed groups, who were trained by the British, forcibly expelled more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland.

Palestine, unlike other Arab and African countries that were gaining independence in the post-colonial era, was subjected to further colonisation at the hands of a new state, Israel. 

Today there are over five million Palestinian refugees outside the Territories, most of whom reside in countries in the region.

And despite a new reconciliation deal between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the coastal enclave’s two million residents endure a worsening humanitarian situation, after a decade of the Israeli blockade.  

“For Palestinians, the Balfour Declaration is the root cause of our destitution, dispossession and the on-going occupation,” Palestinian Ambassador to Nigeria, Saleh Fhied said in a statement issued on the occasion of centenary anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. 

“Our present reality is a consequence of a British policy that created Israel at the expense of the Palestinian people.”

The statement described as “patronising” and “racist”, the British government’s designation of Palestine as a “non-Jewish communities”.

“There has been a 100-year-long cover-up of the British government’s broken promise, in the Balfour declaration, to safeguard the rights of the Palestinians when it gave away their country to another people.

“It is therefore a shame that rather than apologising for our ethnic cleansing, the British government is actually celebrating the centenary of their despicable and vile act,” the statement added. 

The demands of Palestinians 

The effects of the declaration still affect the lives of all Palestinians today, with many of them and other activists have frequently said the UK should formally apologise for it.

In his speech before the United Nations General Assembly, Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, said about Balfour Declaration, “the British Government has not taken any step to correct this historic injustice and has neither apologised to the Palestinian people nor compensated them, nor has it recognised the state of Palestine, but worst they want to celebrate the crime they committed [this] November.”

Palestinians demand that the British government right its historic wrong by acknowledging legal and moral responsibilities and take active steps towards fulfilling their long overdue rights to self-determination.

They also want the British Government to recognise the State of Palestine on the 1967 borders and institute reparations to the Palestinian people in accordance with the provisions and principles of international law, justice and equality.

The British government, they said, should uphold its legal obligations to ensure the respect of International Humanitarian Law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including taking active and effective measure to halt any and all dealings, commercial or otherwise, with the illegitimate colonial regime in occupied Palestine.