Robert Fisk on a hundred years of the Balfour Declaration
So now it’s time for
us all to follow Theresa May’s bone-headed suggestion that we feel “proud” of
the iniquitous Balfour Declaration on its hundredth anniversary this week. The
Israelis will be celebrating – and why not, for it set Britain’s seal on the future
Israeli state in Palestine. Perhaps Israel would not have been created without
it. But the fearful suffering and tragedy of the Palestinian refugees which was
to follow in the coming years suggest that the Balfour letter – through its
very wording – was certain to create a terrible wrongdoing which to this day
curses the place we used to call the Holy Land.
Even more disgraceful
than May’s foolish words – for many Britons may well feel shame or prefer
silence when they contemplate this episode of history – were Mark Regev’s
remarks this week that citizens of the United Kingdom, to which he is currently
accredited as ambassador – are “extremists” if they oppose the Balfour
Declaration. Thus, the man whose
nauseous excuses for the slaughter in Gaza we had to put up with when he was an
Israeli government spokesperson, continues that “those who oppose the
Balfour Declaration are exposing themselves for the extremists they are. If you
oppose a Jewish national home, that means you think Israel should be destroyed.
And let’s be clear: that’s the position of the Iranian government; that’s the
position of terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas.”
So I get it. Instead
of giving the Israeli ambassador a dressing down for such undiplomatic language
towards her own citizens, May preferred to keep a cowardly silence while
Israel’s ambassador told us what to think about the Balfour Declaration – and
that if we didn’t agree with him, we were all extremists, terrorists, and
therefore presumably antisemites, racists, Nazis, not to mention sympathisers
of Hamas.
What gall this man has. Does Regev not even realise – as at least one Israeli journalist has pointed out – that the Balfour Declaration may itself have been, by extension, antisemitic? It followed only a few years after Britain passed laws specifically introduced to prevent further Jewish immigration to the UK from Russia and Eastern Europe. In 1917, we certainly wanted the support of the Jews of Europe and America in the First World War – but we preferred any Jewish immigrants to avoid dank London and head for sunny Palestine.
What gall this man has. Does Regev not even realise – as at least one Israeli journalist has pointed out – that the Balfour Declaration may itself have been, by extension, antisemitic? It followed only a few years after Britain passed laws specifically introduced to prevent further Jewish immigration to the UK from Russia and Eastern Europe. In 1917, we certainly wanted the support of the Jews of Europe and America in the First World War – but we preferred any Jewish immigrants to avoid dank London and head for sunny Palestine.
Yet let’s point out
something right away. Israel – whether or not Balfour was its original foreign
sponsor – exists, and will only disappear if it destroys itself (which its
prime minister’s continued policy of thieving even more Arab land for Israeli
colonists might ultimately bring about). As one of Israel’s
finest historians, now an Oxford scholar, has rightly pointed out, Israel’s
existence might have been grossly unjust to the hundreds of thousands of
Palestinians who lost their homes – now a diaspora of more than six million
refugees – but it is legal and came into existence legally. It is
internationally recognized – though its colonies in the West Bank are not – and
it is a member of the United Nations and has diplomatic relations with 159
countries.
This, however, does
not excuse Theresa May’s “pride”. Indeed, it was instructive to note that in
her remarks, she placed Britain’s trade relations in front of the terrifying
injustice done to the Palestinians. Of course she did. For she cares more about
the results of Brexit than she cares about millions of refugees. This,
remember, is the lady who held Donald Trump’s hand... read more:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/balfour-declaration-theresa-may-israel-jewish-homeland-zionism-benjamin-netanyahu-visit-downing-a8033151.html
Also see:
