- 3 تشرين الثاني 2017
- أقلام مقدسية
By : Walid Salem
On the one hundred years anniversary of Balfour Declaration, I would start by saying that I reject it for three reasons. The first among them is that it considered the Palestinians who were representing the indigenous population and the crucial majority of the Population as being just” Non Jews” without defining who they are. Besides that it considered them to be eligible only for “ civil and religious rights”, while the political rights in a “ national home in Palestine” were excluded to the Jews.
The second reason goes for the fact that Balfour Declaration called the land where the “ national home for Jews” will be established as “ Palestine”, which means that Britain was aware that it is was committing a crime of transferring the land of the indigenous people for the creation of another state for different group.
The third reason is that Britain did not correct its mistake in 1948, by implementing the UN resolution 181 of 1947 that included the establishement of two states of Palestine and Israel. Instead Britain decided just to withdraw its forces from Palestine allowing for the establishment of the State of Israel only, while the Palestinians faced the new plight of the Palestinian refugees.
Britain failed in recognizing the Palestinians, also it failed as a mandatory authority over Palestine to give them their right of self determination.
What Britain did was also a contradiction with other international documents that came two years later, and gave Britain a way out for correction, but this way out was missed unfortunately when Britain insisted to go ahead in implementing the Balfour Declaration. The reference here is made to two 1919 documents: One is Varsailles Treaty, and the second is the American King- Crane Commission Report.
The Versailles Treaty recognized that the “ Pre- Ottoman Provinces are eligible to Independence”. Palestine was one of these provinces.
In other hand, King- Crane Commission report rejected Balfour Declaration and the establishement of a Jewish State in Palestine, stating that such a state can be created only by war, and in the expense of disspossition of the indigenous population. The Commision recommended as an alternative to take the aspirations of the people of Syria( Palestine was part of it till 1919) in consideration when deciding its future.
Instead of correcting accordingly, Britain went on, took Balfour Declaration to the UN League of Nations, and included it in the 1922 “ Terms of the British Mandate” released by the League in July that year.
Besides all that the British violated their 1915-1916 agreements with Sherif Hussein, through Hussein- Mac Mahon correspondence, in which Britain pledged to support the establishement of an Arab State. Further also Britain even violated its 1916 Sykes- Picot Agreement with France which did not include the establishement of any Jewish political entity in Palestine.
This was the history, in which accordingly the Palestinians build their narratives about their plight that they will not forget, nor forgive till it will be redeemed.
In other hand, and according to the rules of realism,Today, The PLO recognized Israel on its 1948 borders with the hope that it will reciprocate by recognizing Palestine over the rest of its territory. But instead the Zionist project is creeping and trying to annex all Palestine under his unilateral control. Britain, Europe, and all the Western world bear a big responsibility for these results.
In the beginning, Europe recognized the emerging Israel in 1948, without taking its responsibility as colonial powers by then to establish Palestine in parallel.
After 1967, Europe is sustaining the continuation of the Israeli occupation and its transformation to annexation, by its policies of First:“ keeping the decisions to be made by the two sides” without any attempt to alleviate the asymmetry by creating Palestinian facts in the ground. Second: By calling for the resumption of the negotiations without considering settlements freeze as a pre- requirement for a successful negotiations. Third: By considering negotiations to be the only way to get to a solution. Fourth: By focusing on state structures building and humanatarian assistance to the Palestinians instead of focusing on building Palestinian facts in the ground.
As a Palestinian who get engaged in dialogues with Europe over the last 25 years since 1993, I see that Europe need a shift of its focus in order to be able to compensate the Palestinians for the plight that it did to them. This change can be made only by the EU adoption of the creation of Palestine in the ground as they created Israel. To do so Europe will need to build Palestinian facts in East Jerusalem and in area C, to rebuild Gaza, to create the free passage between Gaza and West Bank, to work for a just solution to the Palestinian refugees problem, to support the Palestinian people unity and the Palestinian non violent struggle. And finally to recognize collectively the state of Palestine.
If Europe will not take the lead on such a process, then it will be responsible for the upcoming plight to the Palestinians that is already emerging in the horizon.
