PA and Fatah: Britain should apologize and compensate the Palestinians for the Balfour Declaration
Headline: “Ninety-nine years to the Balfour Promise: Britain is morally, legally, and politically responsible for the suffering of our people”
“[For] 99 years since the Balfour Promise (i.e., Declaration), in which ‘One without ownership gave [Palestine] to one without a right [to it],’ Palestine has been a hostage of this promise – in the hope that 2017 will be the year of the end of the occupation. Advisor to [PA] President [Mahmoud Abbas] on Diplomatic Affairs Majdi Al-Khaldi said that… the Palestinian diplomatic [service] is trying to make the government of Britain recognize the State of Palestine as compensation for the mistake that it made then, especially considering the fact that it had no authority over Palestine, and its behavior stemmed from it being a colonialist state that gave itself permission to issue a promise like this…
The Fatah Movement demanded that the British political parties pressure the government of Britain to recognize the independent State of Palestine whose capital is East Jerusalem and whose borders are the borders of June 4, [1967], as a first step on the way to atoning for the historic crime of the Balfour Promise against the Palestinian people.
In a statement published by the [Fatah] Information and Culture Commission, Fatah noted that the Balfour Promise was and is a historic crime that was committed by the colonialist state of Great Britain, which did not have the right to make a change to a single speck of dust of the land of Palestine…
The [PA] Ministry of Information said that the anniversary of the Balfour Promise this year occurs amid extraordinary circumstances, due to President Mahmoud Abbas’ emphasizing that the leadership and the people are determined to hold Britain legally, politically, and morally responsible for its crime, which has already continued for 100 years while Palestine pays a heavy price with its blood, flesh, land, and holy sites.”
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.
“[For] 99 years since the Balfour Promise (i.e., Declaration), in which ‘One without ownership gave [Palestine] to one without a right [to it],’ Palestine has been a hostage of this promise – in the hope that 2017 will be the year of the end of the occupation. Advisor to [PA] President [Mahmoud Abbas] on Diplomatic Affairs Majdi Al-Khaldi said that… the Palestinian diplomatic [service] is trying to make the government of Britain recognize the State of Palestine as compensation for the mistake that it made then, especially considering the fact that it had no authority over Palestine, and its behavior stemmed from it being a colonialist state that gave itself permission to issue a promise like this…
The Fatah Movement demanded that the British political parties pressure the government of Britain to recognize the independent State of Palestine whose capital is East Jerusalem and whose borders are the borders of June 4, [1967], as a first step on the way to atoning for the historic crime of the Balfour Promise against the Palestinian people.
In a statement published by the [Fatah] Information and Culture Commission, Fatah noted that the Balfour Promise was and is a historic crime that was committed by the colonialist state of Great Britain, which did not have the right to make a change to a single speck of dust of the land of Palestine…
The [PA] Ministry of Information said that the anniversary of the Balfour Promise this year occurs amid extraordinary circumstances, due to President Mahmoud Abbas’ emphasizing that the leadership and the people are determined to hold Britain legally, politically, and morally responsible for its crime, which has already continued for 100 years while Palestine pays a heavy price with its blood, flesh, land, and holy sites.”
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.