Tone Deft wrote:
cool, so basically the Brits were about to conquer Palestine, so they decided, "hey, let's give some of this land to the Jews."
The Balfour Declaration, promising a Jewish homeland in Palestine, was made in November 1917 by the British Government. It was made by a European power, determined the fate of a non-European territory and completely disregarded both the presence and the wishes of the native majority in that territory, which was composed of about 700,000 palestinians at the time.
Arthur Balfour himself wrote in 1919: "The contradiction between the letter of the Covenant is even more flagrant in the case of the independent nation of Palestine than in that of the independent nation of Syria. For in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country...The four powers are committed to Zionism and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desire and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land”
(The "letter of the Covenant" refers to the Anglo-French promise to the arabs of self determination and government by the consent of the governed, in return for their support against the Turks in WW I. This included an independent Palestine, which was promised to Sharif hussein by the British Foreign office.)
Balfour went on to say "In fact, so far as Palestine is concerned, the powers have made no statement of fact that is not admittedly wrong, and no declaration of policy which, at least in the letter, they have not always intended to violate"
As a result of Balfour and the subsequent partition Palestinians have been displaced from their homes and have been living in camps and under occupation for almost 60 years; after watching a 9-percent minority in Palestine grow, in 30 years (1917-1948), to establish their own exclusive and powerful nation, protected and armed by Western powers (primarily America), on land which had been theirs for 1,500 years.
So, you can see that this boils down to an extremely irresponsible act of statesmanship on behalf of the western powers, and is more complicated than what so many people describe as "they are just terrorists" who "want to take away our freedom" or "want to cast the jews into the sea".
Gonna leave you with one quote, you might find it interesting.
“Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French...What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct...If they [the Jews] must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs... As it is, they are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them. I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regard as an unacceptable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds.” - Mahatma Gandhi, quoted in “A Land of Two Peoples”
I think I've seen that before but in learning new things in the last half hour, all I can say is deeeeeayaaaanm!!!
