Nov. 2 marked 100 years since former British foreign secretary Arthur James Balfour sent a letter to Lord Rothschild, the first Jewish British MP, stating that the British government viewed with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and would use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this objective. This pledge became known as the Balfour Declaration, and the rest is history. The Jews proved most adept at turning the promise into an immigration permit and a “national homeland” into a nation state. They also turned this very small state into an empire that would seize and occupy territories of three Arab states in addition to the whole of Palestine.
On the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the UK where his British counterpart Theresa May said her country was “proud” of the role it played in establishing the state of Israel. But if anything, the UK government should apologize to the Palestinian people for the Balfour Declaration, not celebrate it. The letter was a crime against humanity. It meant the destruction and destitution of the Palestinian people. As was the case with the Balfour Declaration 100 years ago, the partition resolution of 70 years ago and Resolution 242 of the UN 50 years ago, they all generated waves of much more conflict than peace-making that the peoples of this region are still struggling with today.
Before his visit to London on Thursday, Netanyahu said the Balfour Declaration was “not a tragedy” for Palestinians, and that the true tragedy was the refusal of Palestinians to accept the sentiments of the declaration. But how can a people who were robbed of their land accept 100 years of dispossession? Or that they surrender to the forces of regional allegiances that reduced the concept of the state into a pie to be carved out according to rules and principles that have nothing to do with democracy and equal rights. The 100 years since the Balfour Declaration tell the story of a huge moral tragedy, the longest-running such calamity and misfortune in history. And Britain helped to start it.
Netanyahu, who wants the Palestinians to bow and break, heads a government eagerly pursuing settlement expansion, openly opposing the idea of a Palestinian state and advocating annexing most of the West Bank.
At least the May government was not as bald-faced. To Netanyahu’s brazen claims, May added that the 1917 declaration included a commitment to protect the rights of the Palestinian people.
But in trying to walk this political tightrope, Britain cannot have it both ways. It cannot call for a peace deal based on a two-state solution while at the same time celebrating the role of Arthur Balfour in the establishment of the state of Israel. The declaration marked the first international recognition of the right of the Jewish people for a state in Palestine. That is not to be celebrated. The British government has a moral and historic responsibility to apologize to the Palestinian people and to recognize the state of Palestine.
The UK has repeatedly rejected calls to apologize for the declaration and has drawn back from recognizing a Palestinian state, despite the House of Commons voting three years ago to do so. The Foreign Office says the time is not ripe to recognize Palestine. But 100 years ago, the time was right to recognize Israel, for Britain to be complicit in the suffering of the Palestinians.
Today the region’s destiny lies mostly in the hands of the Arab peoples whereas in the past the fate of the region was largely dictated by outside powers. Balfour promised the homeland of one people to another, although the land belonged neither to Balfour nor Britain. The grand results of this colonial largesse are for all to see.
