... and Palestinians we give millions threaten to sue us over the creation of Israel
BRITAIN has been threatened with legal action by the cashstrapped Palestine government, which is propped up by UK foreign aid.
Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, is demanding reparations for the 1917 Balfour Declaration. This was a letter by UK Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour giving the Cabinet’s support for the ‘establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people’.
It is seen by many Arabs as the root of problems in the region.
The legal threat emerged at last week’s summit of the Arab League – a group of 21 nations – in Mauritania.
Mr Abbas’s foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki branded the declaration an ‘ill-omened promise’, that led to ‘hundreds of thousands of Jews’ moving to Palestine ‘at the expense of our people’. He called on Arab League states to back the lawsuit which he said would be filed ‘at an international court’.
It would lead to a big bill for the Palestine Authority, which has been given £156million since 2011 by the UK’s Department for International Development. A DFID spokesman played down the threat, saying: ‘UK financial support can only be used to provide essential services such as health and education.’
But critics say that while foreign aid may go to essential services, it can free up a regime to spend money on questionable initiatives.