الخميس، 30 مايو 2013

On the anniversary of AlNakba: the Palestinians want Britain's apology



 

      Palestinian activists are organizing a campaign demanding Britain to apologize for the  Balfour Declaration, as being  responsible for the tragedy of the Palestinian people in 1948. The declaration caused  hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to be expelled and killed for over than 95 years. The period Since Britain has occupied Palestine in late 1917 to the present day.



     Britain’s crimes  begun since Balfour Declaration but it didn’t end there. It’s necessary to emphasize that the Palestinian people do not beg for sympathy from Britain or the West, and do not ask them to be bias or stand with them in their  struggle "with (their) neighbors, the Israelis," as the west likes to depict the struggle against the fascism and racism of Zionists. What the Palestinian people simply ask for is that Britain and the West  reform their great historical iniquity, and to amend the crimes they facilitated its commission.  Also to apologize for  their support of the Zionist entity throughout its stages of progressing. A period where its successive attacks on the Palestinian people have never stopped.


The importance of the apology is not a mere word to be said by the British government, which is unrequired by the Palestinian people, because they believe in their right and do not need others to recognition  of it. But because this apology would be a prelude to correct the iniquity committed by the British government, and to also compensate for the past pains and stop the violations that continue until today.



    If the Palestinian cause can be resolved peacefully as the West promotes, then  it means the need to recognize that there is an entire group of people who were uprooted from their land and have the full right to return to it as a prelude to any peaceful real solution. Even if the solution is through fighting against the occupation by force of arms which the majority of the Palestinians think as the only solution in front of the current situation, this means that the West should stop supporting the Zionist entity with weapons, money, diplomacy and media.


    When the British government responded to the demand of the Zionist movement to establish a national home for the Jews on the land of Palestine in 1917, simultaneously  it has facilitated the commission of one of the largest ethnic cleansing crimes in 1948. Until today about 7 million Palestinians are still refugees and are scattered all over the world, some of them are refugees outside their homeland and are prohibited from returning to it, even if they was to return to Ramallah or Gaza.  Some of them are even refugees in their own land and are prohibited from returning to their villages that have been turned into a forest, "natural reserve" or a cows farm.



    The policy of the British occupation government between 1917 and 1948  has contributed in creating this tragedy, by opening the doors for immigration for hundreds of thousands of Jews to Palestine. If the immigration happened for humanitarian reasons to protect fugitives from the Nazis (as claimed by Western propaganda),the catastrophe that has be fallen on the Palestinian people would have never taken place. For the simple reason, that the Palestinians and most of the Arabs received Jews when they were expelled from Andalusia in the sixth century AD. The Jews have always lived in the Arab and Islamic societies, mingled easily and became a part of them.


    But the support of the British occupation for the Zionist movement made these huge numbers of Jewish immigrants a poisoned reality on the land of Palestine. Moreover, the Zionist movement caused a rift between the Jews and the Arab communities who have lived there for hundreds of years in peace and harmony with their Muslim neighbors. The Arab Jews left their communities and went to Palestine in various stages for different reasons either greed to accomplish the Zionist dream, sympathizing  with the people of their religion or from fear of reprisals from angry Muslims over what happened to their Palestinians brothers in (1948). Today, after sixty-five years, the situation became more complicated, these Jews are not able to return to their Arab societies and also it is not accepted from them to live in the place of the homeless Palestinian people.


    Since the war in 1948, the so-called state of Israel has brought Jews from all over the world to come to and inhibit it. It had provided them with all the physical facilities of habitation  and clothing. The same homes which were stolen from the now homeless Palestinian were given to the new comers. While the Palestinians remained expelled from his country and debarred from returning to it, by the claim that the "State of Israel" must stay ethnically pure with a Jewish majority.


    The Crimes of the British occupation did not stop with opening the way for the Jewish immigration or allowing the Zionist the freedom of action in Palestine, but also it turned a blind eye over arming the Zionist gangs, formally and legally through the guards of settlements or the Legion of Jews in the British army, or by arming the different Zionist gangs, such as the Haganah and the Irgun and Lehi, while the Palestinian was prevented from the acquisition of a firearm and were sentenced to death if caught  possessing  of such a weapon




    Palestinians have been left to be victims to the Zionist gangs who committed the worst war massacres and the most heinous ethnic cleansing operations under the British presence in Palestine, before the withdrawal of Britain, even before the declaration of state of Israel.


    The most infamous massacres of Deir Yassin  was committed in 04/09/1948, while British occupation ended in 05/15/1948, and during the period from late 1947 until the last British troops exited, more than half of the Palestinian refugees have been expelled and displaced from their homes, especially in the cities of Tiberias and Haifa, Yafa (the largest Palestinian city in terms of population) and tens of villages. Official British documents released recently have described the tragic situation for the Palestinian people in the final months of the British occupation when they left to face their bloody fate while they were unarmed.


    According to the Zionist account of the war, the new born "State of Israel" fought seven Arab armies came to killed them, but they do not complete the story that the whole number of fighters of the Arab armies did not exceed 35 thousand, while the Zionist gangs were over 60 thousand fighters who had begun their operations of ethnic cleansing before the Arab armies entered Palestine and before Britain  exit from Palestine.


    So, from where did all these armed fighters come from? where did  they got weapons from? And how were they allowed to commit these massacres? all these questions are not fully answered without acknowledging the role  Britain had played in accordance with the Zionist movement.



It’s not the place to speak about the Western support for the Zionist state since its inception and until today, for most of it is known. It is enough for Britain to recognize its greatest iniquity in its contribution in establishing the Zionist project with its criminality, racism and fascism.


    The Nakba in 1948 wouldn’t have happened if Britain accepted the demand of the majority of the Arab Palestine people at that time, that was: establishing a unified state consisting of all its inhabitants, Arabs and Jews, without the racial Zionist projects. Yet this demand was rejected by the Zionists who wanted a pure state ethnically and that the only way for this is murder and expulsion.  Refer to the article "iron wall - we and the Arabs,"  written by Jabotinsky early (in 1923), which stated bluntly the need for fighting, expulsion and killing of  the Arabs. Jabotinsky is the spiritual father of the Zionist right which is ruling today in the so-called State of Israel, and he is the founder of the party Herut (which later became the Likud.)




    Today, Matters are more complicated and one state will not be a solution, also two states will not be a solution. Tens of years of blood shed will not be resolved by a treaty or two, however any solution must begin with recognizing the right of return for Palestinian refugees to their homeland, though some consider the complexities of the process if applied, but at least we can proceed from the point of recognition their right.


    If the Zionists refuse (as expected) this right, countries of the world, led by Britain, must stand against them, otherwise, they are partners in the crime and they are persistent to continuing their old iniquity. As the West recognized the suffering of the Jews by the Nazis and demand payment for compensating them for the persecution they faced and demand returning their confiscated possessions. Justice requires treatment of Palestinian similarly, otherwise, the West recognizes that it is racial and unfair.


    We don’t support the war declared on Britain, or what some organizations close to "alQaeda" do in its random bombings in Britain or elsewhere.  Especially when these bombings target innocent people who have nothing to do with the official British policy. The Palestinian people as right owners want to focus only on out rights, not to open battlefields which may cause  our goal to be misunderstood.

 

    The Palestinian people have more strength points and are more influential, especially after the Arab Spring, and the awakening of the Arab people. Through political and economic pressure by Arab governments on Britain, Europe and America in order to apologize for the Balfour Declaration and to apologize for sixty-five years of unlimited support for a state that was based on ethnic cleansing and on policies of racism and fascism.




    Here comes the role of the people by putting pressure on their governments to take their role in this direction. As long as the campaign for demanding Britain to apologize for Balfour Declaration, revolves only in public frameworks without having an influence on the Arab decision-maker, it will not have a practical and palpable result.


Special thanks for: Amal Yaseen and Alya Alsaleh for help in translation.

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