Balfour Declaration led to “establishment of a homeland for the Zionist movement in return for.. a tool for carrying out the ambitions of the capitalist West in Palestine… and also in order to resolve the Jewish issue in Europe”
Headline: “Putting Britain - giver of the [Balfour] Promise - on trial"
Excerpt of op-ed by Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, regular columnist for the official PA daily
“Tomorrow, Wednesday [Nov. 2, 2016], will be the 99th anniversary of the ominous Balfour Promise (i.e., Declaration), the promise of the Foreign Secretary of Not-Great Britain [Arthur Balfour] to the members of the Jewish religion to establish ‘a national homeland' for them in Arab Palestine, the historical homeland of the Palestinian Arab people since the creation of mankind on earth. The barbarity of this offensive promise made by the government of the state of the British Mandate in Palestine is not expressed solely by its being issued, but also by the activity to implement it in the field, as the Supreme British Commissioner in Palestine, the Jew Herbert Samuels, legislated laws and regulations that assisted in the implementation of the ominous promise on the Palestinian land. Likewise, it created all of the social, political, economic, and legal conditions for the establishment of a homeland for the Zionist movement in return for it [the Zionist movement] constituting a tool for carrying out the ambitions of the capitalist West in Palestine and in the Arab homeland, and also in order to resolve the Jewish issue in Europe, at the expense of the Palestinian people. Unfortunately, a number of leaders of Arab states at the time colluded with the British plan, which made it easier for it [Britain] and the Zionist movement to commit the crime of the century at the expense of their Palestinian brothers.
The focus on the capitalist British role does not mean ignoring the roles of the other central powers… However, the national need, as [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas has said on a number of occasions, requires pursuing the state that published the criminal promise in the Arab and international forums and putting it on trial in front of the International Court of Justice and on the podium of the UN for the barbaric crime that it perpetrated against the future of the Palestinian people, and which threw it to the wayside for 68 years, without doing anything to cover the shame of its barbarity and its great crime. Moreover, until now it still hesitates to recognize the State of Palestine on 22% of the territory of historical Palestine, despite [the fact that] this amount is less than the territory in the international Partition Resolution 181 (rejected by Arab leaders and states –Ed.) that was published on Nov. 29, 1947. Likewise, it openly colludes with the ethnic cleansing state by not transferring its financial obligations to the PA budget under the pretext that they go to the freedom prisoners (imprisoned terrorists –Ed.) and the Martyrs (Shahids) of national heroism…
Justice, in its relative sense, necessitates holding the United Kingdom responsible for every detail of the suffering of the Palestinian people. Not through recognition of the Palestinian state, or by providing financial and economic aid, but rather by apologizing for the crime that it committed by issuing the ominous promise on Nov. 2, 1917, to the benefit of the Zionist movement; exerting its political, diplomatic, and economic weight to make the states of Europe recognize the Palestinian state; imposing a political, diplomatic, financial, and military boycott on the Israeli occupation state until it recognizes the rights of the Palestinian people, retreats from all the territories of the State of Palestine that were occupied in 1967, and guarantees the right of return of the Palestinian refugees on the basis of UN Resolution 194; bearing financial and economic responsibility for the development of the Palestinian economy as Germany and Europe in general did in order to build the colonialist Israeli economy; and returning all the monies and property that were stolen from the Palestinian treasury before it left in May 1948.
The government of England is required to comply with the conventions and laws of the international bodies, to declare before the world that it made a mistake and was involved in the harming of the Arab Palestinian rights, and to publish the documents that reveal the capitalist West states and the Arab states that were involved with it in the crime of the century in order to put them on trial in the international courts. This is because the Palestinian people and its political leadership will not forgive anyone who contributed to the destruction of their lives, expelled them from their homeland mother Palestine, and brought the Zionist colonialists from the different countries of the world so that they would take their (i.e., the Palestinians') place on the land of their historical state.”
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.
UN resolution 194 (Chapter 11, Dec. 11, 1948) states that "the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return." Palestinian leaders argue this means that all Arabs who left Israel during the war (hundreds of thousands) and their descendants (a few million) have a "right of return" to Israel. Israel argues that the resolution only calls for a limited return and only under certain conditions, especially focusing on the words "wishing to return... and live at peace with their neighbors."
Excerpt of op-ed by Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, regular columnist for the official PA daily
“Tomorrow, Wednesday [Nov. 2, 2016], will be the 99th anniversary of the ominous Balfour Promise (i.e., Declaration), the promise of the Foreign Secretary of Not-Great Britain [Arthur Balfour] to the members of the Jewish religion to establish ‘a national homeland' for them in Arab Palestine, the historical homeland of the Palestinian Arab people since the creation of mankind on earth. The barbarity of this offensive promise made by the government of the state of the British Mandate in Palestine is not expressed solely by its being issued, but also by the activity to implement it in the field, as the Supreme British Commissioner in Palestine, the Jew Herbert Samuels, legislated laws and regulations that assisted in the implementation of the ominous promise on the Palestinian land. Likewise, it created all of the social, political, economic, and legal conditions for the establishment of a homeland for the Zionist movement in return for it [the Zionist movement] constituting a tool for carrying out the ambitions of the capitalist West in Palestine and in the Arab homeland, and also in order to resolve the Jewish issue in Europe, at the expense of the Palestinian people. Unfortunately, a number of leaders of Arab states at the time colluded with the British plan, which made it easier for it [Britain] and the Zionist movement to commit the crime of the century at the expense of their Palestinian brothers.
The focus on the capitalist British role does not mean ignoring the roles of the other central powers… However, the national need, as [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas has said on a number of occasions, requires pursuing the state that published the criminal promise in the Arab and international forums and putting it on trial in front of the International Court of Justice and on the podium of the UN for the barbaric crime that it perpetrated against the future of the Palestinian people, and which threw it to the wayside for 68 years, without doing anything to cover the shame of its barbarity and its great crime. Moreover, until now it still hesitates to recognize the State of Palestine on 22% of the territory of historical Palestine, despite [the fact that] this amount is less than the territory in the international Partition Resolution 181 (rejected by Arab leaders and states –Ed.) that was published on Nov. 29, 1947. Likewise, it openly colludes with the ethnic cleansing state by not transferring its financial obligations to the PA budget under the pretext that they go to the freedom prisoners (imprisoned terrorists –Ed.) and the Martyrs (Shahids) of national heroism…
Justice, in its relative sense, necessitates holding the United Kingdom responsible for every detail of the suffering of the Palestinian people. Not through recognition of the Palestinian state, or by providing financial and economic aid, but rather by apologizing for the crime that it committed by issuing the ominous promise on Nov. 2, 1917, to the benefit of the Zionist movement; exerting its political, diplomatic, and economic weight to make the states of Europe recognize the Palestinian state; imposing a political, diplomatic, financial, and military boycott on the Israeli occupation state until it recognizes the rights of the Palestinian people, retreats from all the territories of the State of Palestine that were occupied in 1967, and guarantees the right of return of the Palestinian refugees on the basis of UN Resolution 194; bearing financial and economic responsibility for the development of the Palestinian economy as Germany and Europe in general did in order to build the colonialist Israeli economy; and returning all the monies and property that were stolen from the Palestinian treasury before it left in May 1948.
The government of England is required to comply with the conventions and laws of the international bodies, to declare before the world that it made a mistake and was involved in the harming of the Arab Palestinian rights, and to publish the documents that reveal the capitalist West states and the Arab states that were involved with it in the crime of the century in order to put them on trial in the international courts. This is because the Palestinian people and its political leadership will not forgive anyone who contributed to the destruction of their lives, expelled them from their homeland mother Palestine, and brought the Zionist colonialists from the different countries of the world so that they would take their (i.e., the Palestinians') place on the land of their historical state.”
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.
UN resolution 194 (Chapter 11, Dec. 11, 1948) states that "the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return." Palestinian leaders argue this means that all Arabs who left Israel during the war (hundreds of thousands) and their descendants (a few million) have a "right of return" to Israel. Israel argues that the resolution only calls for a limited return and only under certain conditions, especially focusing on the words "wishing to return... and live at peace with their neighbors."