100 years of Balfour Declaration
It’s time the international community pushes for a homeland for the Palestinians
NEVER in the history of mankind has a threeparagraph document caused so much controversy and consternation. One hundred years ago on Nov 2, 1917, British foreign secretary Arthur Balfour wrote a letter to Walter Rothschild, signing away Palestinian land to the Jews. While the Israelis celebrate the centenary of this Balfour Declaration, it has been 100 years of blood, sweat and tears for the Palestinians. Persecution of the Palestinians cannot and must not be a cause for celebration.
“For the Palestinian people — my people — the events this letter triggered have been as devastating as they have been far-reaching,” wrote Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in The Guardian on Wednesday.
The declaration also promised “that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”. This promise has gone the way of a dead letter. The declaration, in many ways, hastened the birth of Israel in 1948, when more than 800,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homeland.
Today, 12 million Palestinians are scattered around the globe. They remain without a homeland and in occupation. Persecution of Palestinians persists. So does their dream for a homeland.
The only way to end the plight of the Palestinians, who took flight in 1948 and after the Israeli-Arab war, is to give the Palestinians a state of their own. Eimear McBride, the author of A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing, described life in Israeli-occupied West Bank after a seven-day visit to the place last year to the Irish Times thus: “Living in the West Bank is like being trapped in a cage. The walls of the cage are being wound ever tighter around the Palestinian people. It’s hard to see that kind of suffering and believe there is an end in sight.”
If we do not wish such a life for birds and animals, how could we want the same for the Palestinians? It is hard to imagine one people inflict such harm on another, especially when the latter’s land was carved out for the former.
The declaration was wrong, but it can be made right. The time has come for the international community to push for a homeland for the Palestinians.
Israel should cease putting one obstacle after another along the path to peace. It does not help Israel. If the Israelis want so much to live in peace, they must take all steps to make a Palestinian homeland possible. The shape of peace will be determined by the road taken.
Admittedly, there were hurdles along this path to peace in the past, but a disadvantaged history is not a good model to shape the future. The international community must persevere. In striving shall the glory of peace be. One people cannot be made to shoulder all the pain while the other plunders the spoils. Being human means being humane. Palestine should not and must not be prevented to exercise its legitimate rights. One people’s home cannot be dispossessed to house another.