In the Shadow of Balfour

Posted on | May 14, 2017 | No Comments

In the Shadow of Balfour
On Wednesday 17th May 2017 at 7pm
Ben Jamal, Director of National PSC will be speaking at
Friends Meeting House, Upper Goat Lane, Central Norwich
 
Ben  will discuss how the Balfour declaration set the frame for Palestinian dispossession in the Nakba of 1948 and what is required from the British government now to fulfil its moral and legal responsibilities towards the Palestinian people.
 
Balfour initiated a policy of British support for Israel which continues to this very day, to the detriment of the occupied Palestinians of the West Bank and the five million Palestinian refugees living largely in warrens of poverty around the Middle East, including Israeli-besieged Gaza. No pride there, then!

CENTENARY OF THE BALFOUR DECLARATION 1917
 
“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 that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country” – The Balfour Declaration Nov 1917
“For in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country ( i.e. we do not accept the principle of self determination for the Arabs of Palestine)… the four great powers are committed to Zionism, and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, and far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land…” memo from Balfour to Lord Curzon 1919
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This year will mark 100 years since the Balfour Declaration when British Foreign Minister, Arthur Ba;four, wrote to the Zionist movement pledging UK government support for a Jewish home in Palestine.
The declaration famously stated that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”, that is the Palestinians, who constituted 94% of the population, and were not consulted when their land was given away. This was a typically colonial British act of the time – not something to be proud of.

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