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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