Wednesday, August 5, 2009

History (Part 2) - The Balfour Declaration

Israel’s second claim to the land of Palestine is based on the Balfour Declaration of 1917. What an unbelievable document of contradiction. In order to appear interested in protecting the Palestinians against injustice, the Balfour Declaration stated:

It being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine,

That’s impossible! The rational mind knew that conflict between these two nations of people would have been unavoidable even if Balfour had been serious in his commitment to equally share the land of Palestinian. But there is little evidence that he or “his Majesty’s Government” had any intentions of creating anything but a Jewish-dominant country. The Balfour Declaration started with commitment to Zionism:

His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood……

How in heaven’s name did anyone think that they could plop one nation down on top of another without violating the “civil and religious rights” of the indigenous population? How could the Jews be given a homeland on top of the 700,000 Palestinians already living in the land without prejudicing their rights? History shows that Britain never intended to protect the rights of anyone but the Jews. According to Balfour’s own words, he had no desire to be fair. In 1919, in a memorandum to the British cabinet, he wrote:

In Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country. So far as Palestine is concerned, we have made no statement of fact which is not admittedly wrong and no declaration of policy which at least in the letter we have not always intended to violate.[1]

The Balfour agreement referred to the Jewish community by name. The Arabs who had been living there for thousands of years and owned over 90 percent of the land were merely referred to as the “non-Jewish sections.” In one brief statement, Lord Balfour, a dedicated Zionist, disenfranchised a whole nation of people and thirteen centuries of history.

The Zionists purpose is not and never has been merely to exploit the Palestinians. Classical imperial movements during the 19th and 20th centuries colonized weaker nations in order to capitalize on cheap labor and extract natural resources. Zionism, on the other hand, wanted to dispossess the Palestinians altogether; its goal was to substitute one people on the land for another. They went to Palestine, not to seek a haven within an existing society, but to replace that society.

In spite of Zionist propaganda that Balfour sought a reasonable solution to the Jewish predicament, history shows it as a hoax, and a justification for a one sided massacre of a weak and innocent nation.

Thomas Are
August 5, 2009

[1] Elias Chacour, Blood Brothers, (Fleming H. Revell, Chosen Books, Old Tappan, NJ., 1984)
p. 118.

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