PLO official: Balfour Declaration was “colonialist agreement” and a “sin”
Headline: "How can Britain atone for the Balfour Promise?"
By Secretary-General of the PLO Executive Committee and Fatah Central Committee member Saeb Erekat
"The Balfour Promise (i.e., Declaration) was never a report on paper or a promise given by one of the British statesmen, but rather an occupation colonialist agreement that aided and set the basis for committing one of the tragedies of the century, the tragedy of a people that is still paying the price of the conspiracy against it by some of the colonialist states.
The promise openly included a central contradiction, which lies in the call not to harm the civil and religious rights of those called the non-Jewish communities living in Palestine. This fundamentally contradicts the idea of establishing a national homeland for the Jews and the implementation of every act that would facilitate this, as the establishment of this homeland required the uprooting of a people from its land and the settlement of a different people, alongside the intentional harming of the right of the [members of the] Palestinian people who were the original inhabitants, to live in their homeland and to realize their self-determination on their land…
Israel alone could not have taken over the land of Palestine and planted itself there without Britain and the international community supporting the occupation project and giving it immunity from accountability. Britain gave Palestine to the Jews for free, and its support of the Balfour Promise was the first declared link in the realization and establishment of the occupation of Palestine… In order to atone for the sin of the Balfour Promise, Britain must recognize the State of Palestine in the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital, as one of the conditions for protecting the two-state solution it calls to implement, and give a new promise to the Palestinian people according to which it will help it (i.e., the Palestinian people) live in freedom in its national homeland."
Published as well in Donia Al-Watan, independent Palestinian news agency, on Nov. 2, 2016
The Balfour Declaration of Nov. 2, 1917 was a letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Baron Rothschild stating that “His Majesty's government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” and is seen as the basis for later international commitments to establish the State of Israel.
By Secretary-General of the PLO Executive Committee and Fatah Central Committee member Saeb Erekat
"The Balfour Promise (i.e., Declaration) was never a report on paper or a promise given by one of the British statesmen, but rather an occupation colonialist agreement that aided and set the basis for committing one of the tragedies of the century, the tragedy of a people that is still paying the price of the conspiracy against it by some of the colonialist states.
The promise openly included a central contradiction, which lies in the call not to harm the civil and religious rights of those called the non-Jewish communities living in Palestine. This fundamentally contradicts the idea of establishing a national homeland for the Jews and the implementation of every act that would facilitate this, as the establishment of this homeland required the uprooting of a people from its land and the settlement of a different people, alongside the intentional harming of the right of the [members of the] Palestinian people who were the original inhabitants, to live in their homeland and to realize their self-determination on their land…
Israel alone could not have taken over the land of Palestine and planted itself there without Britain and the international community supporting the occupation project and giving it immunity from accountability. Britain gave Palestine to the Jews for free, and its support of the Balfour Promise was the first declared link in the realization and establishment of the occupation of Palestine… In order to atone for the sin of the Balfour Promise, Britain must recognize the State of Palestine in the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital, as one of the conditions for protecting the two-state solution it calls to implement, and give a new promise to the Palestinian people according to which it will help it (i.e., the Palestinian people) live in freedom in its national homeland."
Published as well in Donia Al-Watan, independent Palestinian news agency, on Nov. 2, 2016
The Balfour Declaration of Nov. 2, 1917 was a letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Baron Rothschild stating that “His Majesty's government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” and is seen as the basis for later international commitments to establish the State of Israel.