Israel’s West Bank annexation plan is an act of ‘colonial aggression’ happening now

There have been some good points made by your correspondents about the Balfour declaration (“Balfour should be remembered for acts of colonial aggression in Palestine”; “Unfair to say it was aimed at denying political rights to Palestinians”, Letters, June 19 and 22).

Establishing a national home for Jewish people when those people had suffered centuries of hatred, abuse and discrimination was clearly a good idea. But the big question is, and always has been, why did the British Government, through Balfour, believe that they were entitled to promise to Jewish people land that belonged to others, namely the Palestinians.

But all that is history. The situation on the ground now is that for the past 53 years Israel has occupied land which was part of Jordan and Syria, following the war in 1967.

And now, on 1 July, Israel is proposing, with Donald Trump’s blessing, to annex part of this land acquired by conflict – 30 per cent of the West Bank including the Jordan Valley, and the land already occupied by illegal settlements, and treat it as part of Israel. The Jordan Valley is the most fertile part of the

West Bank – taking the settlements allows Israel to take 80 per cent of the West Bank’s water resources.

If the annexed population is denied Israeli citizenship, as seems likely, Israel will rule over 12 million people, of whom six million will be Palestinian, of which five million will not have the vote.

It will be difficult then to describe Israel as a democratic country. They will be open to the charge of being colonial aggressors.

It will be interesting to see the reaction of the UK and Scottish governments, and governments around the world, and the action they are prepared to take. When Russia annexed the Crimea in 2014, sanctions were imposed on Russia along with travel bans. This was to uphold the principle of the foundation stone of the United Nations, namely that there can be no more acquisition of territory by force. Let us hope that more sensible voices prevail in Israel, and they pull back.

PHIL TATE Craiglockhart Road, Edinburgh

Many thanks for publishing Jock Stein’s measured and comprehensive response to Dr Scandrett’s misleading and partial diatribe against The Balfour Declaration of November 1917.

May I add that it followed Imperial Germany’s alliance in World War I with the Ottoman Empire, whose army was advised and commanded by many Germans such as General von Sanders.

After the defeat of both empires, it fell to the French and British to establish some sort of ordered administrations in the Middle East – which would not have happened had Germany not initiated the First World War.

The current apparently insoluble problems throughout the whole Middle East can therefore be laid at Germany’s door – along with destroying Russia’s fledgling democracy, spawning the Soviet Union in 1917 by facilitating Lenin’s return from Zurich, and causing World War II, which extended the Soviet empire’s power, enabling Stalin to forge Mao’s China and Kim’s Korea.

Germany’s legacy in creating our modern world by inflicting these disasters on us all should not be forgotten, particularly when reparations for the Atlantic slave trade seem to be back on the agenda.

JOHN BIRKETT Horseleys Park, St Andrews, Fife