Britain commemorates day it promised ‘to a second nation the country of a third’
Protesters say that the promise to establish a state for Jewish people must also respect rights of non-Jewish people
London’s world- renowned black taxi cabs bore the slogan #Makeitright. Some of the biggest public venues in the capital were hired for commemorative events. And a black-tie dinner in the West End hosted two prime ministers and swathe of the elite.
The centenary of the Balfour Declaration, which paved the way for the establishment of the Israeli state in Palestine, was marked yesterday across Britain in a polarised atmosphere.
Theresa May, the British prime minister, met Benjamin Netanyahu – her Israeli counterpart – in Downing Street, having pledged to “mark with pride” Britain’s role in creating Israel.
Facing a backlash for her embrace of the occasion, she called on Mr Netanyahu to display “a renewed resolve to support a lasting peace that is in the interests of both Israelis and Palestinians – and in the interests of us all”.
“A peace deal that must be based on a two-state solution, with a secure and prosperous Israel alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state,” she said.
Arthur Balfour, the British foreign secretary in 1917, sent the defining statement of British foreign policy to Lord Rothschild in a letter dated November 2. In 67 words, it set the tone for the later British mandate to govern Palestine.
After the Second World War, the British were driven out of the region when the mandate expired in May 1948 and Israeli independence was declared.
In effect a resolution, the letter said: “His majesty’s government views 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.”
Following the collapse of the Ottoman empire, the mandate of Palestine was approved in 1920 by the League of Nations and, as decades elapsed, there was a spike in the number of Jews immigrating to Palestine.
The Black Cab campaign with posters declaring #makeitright was conceived to urge the British public to ensure the entire- ty of the statement is finally delivered.
“Activists had launched a ‘ make it right’ campaign in which 52 black cabs displayed a logo to raise awareness of the consequences of the Balfour Declaration which subsequently led to the forced expulsion of the Palestinians in 1948,” said organiser Lema Nazeeh.
“We are talking about this second part which is not fulfilled, the independent Palestinian state,” said Manuel Hassassian, the Palestinian ambassador in London. “In 1988, we made our painful historic concession in recognising the state of Israel. We Palestinians would have expected the moral and historic responsibility to be shouldered by this government to apologise to the Palestinian people and to go ahead with the second part by recognising the state of Palestine.”
Senior Conservatives who have urged the government to go further include Sir Hugo Swire, a former foreign office minister, who told Boris Johnson, Balfour’s successor as foreign secretary, to take the step of recognition in a house of commons debate this week.
At a separate and privately-organised debate in parliament yesterday, the senior civil servant in the foreign office, Sir Simon McDonald pointed out that his own predecessor in 1917, Lord Charles Hardinge, opposed sending the letter.
His caution was that he “distrusted general pledges”.
Mr McDonald offered sympathy for Hardinge’s position.
“He wrote he had concerns about ‘giving encouragement to a movement based on conditions which we cannot enforce’. And he was right,” he said. “The second half of Balfour’s Declaration remains unfinished business.
“This second element said that the British government clearly understood that ‘nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine’,” he said.
“If written after the Second World War when the international community developed the rules-based international architecture, the declaration would have also referred to the political rights and rights to self-determination of these communities, too.”
However Mr Netanyahu dismissed attempts to depict the Balfour Declaration as an error. “The Palestinians say that the Balfour Declaration was a tragedy. It wasn’t a tragedy,” he said. “What’s been tragic is their refusal to accept this 100 years later. I hope they change their mind, because if they do, they can move forward finally to making peace between our two peoples,” he said.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a long-time critic of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians, declined an invitation to attend the dinner, which is being hosted by Lord Jacob Rothschild and Lord Roderick Balfour.
Activists hope Mr Corbyn will attend a rally tomorrow that starts at the US embassy and ends at Trafalgar Square, which is expected to attract thousands. Organisers have called for a 12-point apology to be read to the crowd by Mr Johnson.
A full- page advertisement quoted the words of novelist Arthur Koestler, who said the Balfour Declaration was an act in which “one nation promised to a second nation the country of a third”.