Palestinians demand that the British government apologize for the 1917 promise to Zionist organizations to establish a Jewish state in Palestine.
Palestinian activists and the diplomatic mission of Palestine in the U.K. have launched a campaign to demand that the British government apologize for the Balfour Declaration of 1917 which promised Zionist organizations a Jewish state in Palestine.
“The Palestinian Return Centre is hosting an event inside the U.K. Parliament a week ahead of the 99th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration which will be on Nov. 2,” a press release by the Palestinian Return Center said on Oct. 25.
“The Balfour Declaration, which had no basis of legal authority, promised the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, where the indigenous Palestinians amounted to 90% of the total population.”
The campaign is seeking to push a parliamentary petition to issue an apology. The petition is currently pending approval. If it receives more than 100,000 signatures, U.K. lawmakers would have to debate the issue which already has the support of most pro-Palestine MPs.
According to Al-Jazeera, Baroness Jenny Tonge, an independent member of Britain’s upper house of parliament said, “There will be people in the House of Commons and the House of Lords who will be raising the issue all through the next year,” regardless of the petition.
In 1917 then British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour promised to support the head of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland in a bid for a homeland for Jews in historic Palestine, which Britain controlled after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country,” the text of the declaration reads.
But Palestinian activists say that the “non-prejudice condition” was never implemented and was ignored by both the Zionist militias and the British government.
“After the Balfour Declaration Palestine became the victim of colonialism and Britain’s legacy is still evident today as Palestinians continue to be denied the right to self-determination and suffer from living under military occupation or as refugees,” the U.K.-based Palestinian Return Centre said in its press release.
“As the 100th year since the Balfour declaration approaches, the Palestinian Return Center has decided to re-launch its campaign which started in 2013 called the Balfour Apology Campaign which asks the U.K. government to officially apologise for its past colonial crimes in Palestine.”
Upon the founding of Israel in 1948, Israeli authorities and Jewish extremist militias ethnically cleansed up to 750,000 Palestinians from their homes, creating waves of refugees from the West Bank and Gaza, many of whom crossed into Lebanon and Syria. Thousands more Palestinians were forced into refugee camps after the 1967 War between Israel, Syria and Egypt.
— source telesurtv.net