Britain's Balfour and the Arab Balfours

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Sunday, November 2, 2008, marks the anniversary of the British Balfour Declaration, which pledged to establish a national home for the Jews on the land of Palestine, “with due regard for the civil and religious rights” of the non-Jewish communities in Palestine. As usual, many people pour their curses, on this occasion, upon Balfour and the British government he spoke for, and I curse him along with all the other cursers.

On this occasion, a signature campaign is launched in Palestine and abroad to sue Britain for the crimes it committed against the Palestinian people, for had it not been for Britain, the Palestinian people would never have suffered the displacement, torture, and killing it has suffered, nor would other Arab peoples have suffered so many calamities and catastrophes. This campaign is meant to remind the coming generations of the terrifying criminal role Britain played in establishing the Zionist entity and expelling the Palestinian people from its homeland. Everyone is invited to take part in this campaign as a contribution toward holding Britain to account for its historical and moral responsibilities.

On this occasion, I would note that the Oslo Accord, which the Palestine Liberation Organization signed with the Zionist entity, is an extension of the Balfour Declaration, since it is an agreement focused on the civil rights of the Palestinian people in the territory occupied in ‘67. Balfour showed concern for civil rights across the whole of Mandatory Palestine, while the Liberation Organization has contented itself with the West Bank and Gaza — and has not even obtained those rights yet. Egypt and Jordan, meanwhile, are now committed to defending Israeli security against so-called Palestinian terrorism, and next to the Jordanian and Egyptian regimes, Balfour appears positively moderate. Other Arab states, such as Morocco, Qatar, and Bahrain, maintain normalized relations with the Zionist entity even as they take part in imposing the siege on the Gaza Strip. Amid such impotence, moral decay, and leaderships preoccupied with their own appetites and vices, whoever was supposed to be a friend becomes, instead, a tool in the enemy’s hand.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “بلفور البريطاني وبلفورون العرب” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.