Unfair to state Balfour Declaration aimed to deny political rights to Palestinians

To say that the Balfour Declaration was “designed to deny political rights to the Palestinians” is a classic example of reading back contemporary concerns for justice in the Middle East into a totally different situation early last century (“Balfour should be remembered for his act of colonial aggression in Palestine”, Letters, 19 June).

It is certainly true that the British Government tried “to establish a national home for the Jewish people”, but when the future Israeli Prime Minister Ben Gurion heard about it, he said realistically: “Britain has not given Palestine back to us... she has acknowledged our right to the country. But only the Hebrew people can transform this right into tangible fact.”

At this point in time there were half a million Arabs and about 90,000 Jews living in Palestine, but only 10 per cent of the land was under cultivation.

Jewish immigration led to improved agriculture and health, which Arabs also benefited from, there being at that time plenty of land for all and Jews were able to buy barren swampy land from Arabs and others without coercion.

The Balfour Declaration actually includes the clause “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of non-jewish communities in Palestine”.

Over the next 20 years, British foreign policy typically tried to keep in with both sides, which allowed the British mandate administrators to wink at illegal Arab immigration and certainly did not prevent them turning back by force Jewish refugee ships from Germany in the 1930s. In 1939 the British Government published a White Paper restricting Jewish immigration, designed to allow the Arabs to prevent Jews ever becoming a majority in Palestine.

The situation is roughly as follows: Between half and three-quarters of a million Arabs fled from Palestine between April and December 1948, many of them encouraged to do so by their political leaders, who promised them they would be able to return to their homes once Israel had been destroyed. (About 160,000 Arabs either remained in Israel or returned to their homes in Israel during 1949).

These Arabs who fled from Palestine went to Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

Sadly, it was Abdul Nasser’s policy to keep many of them in camps as a political grievance instead of integrating them into these surrounding Arab nations.

A similar number of Jews fled from Arab countries and were absorbed by Israel. UN resolution 194 was actually voted against by the Arab league of nations and Israel, of course, was not even involved!

But if the Arab nations had behaved as generously to their own people as Israel did to theirs there would be no refugee problem.

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