"The battle… will not stop until colonialism passes from the Palestinian land" threatens PA Daily
Excerpt of an op-ed by Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, regular columnist for the official PA daily; on Maher Al-Akhras, who is being held under administrative detention on accusations of being a member of the Islamic Jihad terror organization, ending his hunger strike after 103 days after Israel promised it would release him on Nov. 26, 2020 and not renew his detention
Headline: “Maher Al-Akhras triumphs”
“The battle of willpower between the victim and the executioner in Palestine has not stopped for a moment since the Zionist colonialist project began to put down roots in historical Palestine at the end of the 19th century and up to this very day. [It also will not stop] until colonialism passes from the Palestinian land, and until the effects of the Balfour Promise (i.e., Declaration), the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the San Remo Conference (which confirmed the British Mandate for Palestine –Ed.), and all the Western colonialist and capitalist plans are removed.”
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." In 1922, the League of Nations adopted this and made the British Mandate "responsible for putting into effect the declaration," which led to the UN vote in favor of partitioning Mandatory Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state in 1947. In response, Britain ended its mandate on May 15, 1948, and the Palestinian Jews, who accepted the Partition Plan, declared the independent State of Israel. The Palestinian Arabs rejected the plan and together with 7 Arab states attacked Israel, in what is now known as Israel's War of Independence.
Sykes-Picot Agreement – A secret agreement between Britain and France negotiated by French diplomat François Georges-Picot and Briton Sir Mark Sykes and concluded in May 1916. The agreement had Russia’s approval and specified Britain’s and France’s proposed spheres of influence and control in the Middle East if the Ottoman Empire was defeated in World War I. The plan was revealed in 1917 in the Russian press, and subsequently in the British press, angering the Arabs as it contradicted promises of independence made to them - on the condition they helped fight against and bring down the Ottoman Empire. The plan caused lasting distrust on the part of the Arabs in relation to Western countries.