ICSPR: after 100 of Balfour Declaration, Humanity workers should work hard to resort the rights of the Palestinian people.
Thursday 2 November 2017 marks 100 year of Balfour Declaration, which is an anniversary, the Palestinian people marks every year to reject the promise that Arthur James Balfour to Lord Lionel Walter De Rothschild, referring to the British government’s support to establish national homeland for Jews in Palestine.
The promise made by the British government caused unlimited suffering that the Palestinians have lived and continue to this day. It is therefore morally and legally necessary for the British government to back down from what it has said and to apologize to the Palestinian people for the suffering.
The illegality of the Balfour Declaration is clear. It is a promise from someone who has no right in the land to give to a third party. The promise has included a great legal fallacy in the use of terms. Some try to speak of the promise as a declaration “To give it a legal status. It is just a political promise written by the allies of the occupation authorities and gives them no legal legitimacy to occupy the Palestinian territories. Therefore, the legal and jurisprudential literature refuted some of the suspicions that were adopted to justify the Balfour Declaration, the most important of which are:
A- The Palestinian were unable to carry out their affairs and therefore needed guardianship, which is refuted by serious historical studies that prove that Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire and has deputies in its parliament. This means that the Palestinians have reached a high level in practicing democracy so that deputies have been elected and this is the summit of democracy.
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B- Jews are the majority and the rest are scattered communities, which was reflected on the language of promise, which referred to the original Palestinian people, which is 93% of the population, as the communities have no links in between. This attributes in affirming the phrase “land without a people for a people without land,” which is contradicted to history facts. Jews did not exceed 8% of the country’s population.
C- The Palestinians were uncivilized, while many studies proved that the Palestinian people have always been civilized in which Muslims and Christians lived for centuries. History has shown that the Christians of Palestine welcomed the leader Salah Al Din when he came and did not do so with the Crusaders. Christian were living under tolerant Islamic rule.
The promise or the declaration of Balfour confiscated the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and created the suffering of the Palestinian refugees who were uprooted from their homes during the repeated Israeli wars and placed them in different places. The Declaration put the Palestinian under occupation violates all its rights such as the political and economic rights, self-determination, freedom and free expression, fair trail, preventing torture and many others, which are guaranteed by the international law.
This anniversary coincides the continued Israeli occupation authorities’ denial of all the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, as they deny the right of return of the Palestinian refugees, as stipulated in UN General Assembly. As well as the continuation of the Israeli occupation authorities to deprive the Palestinian people of their right to self-determination, political and economic, and the occupation state continues to adopt policies contrary to international law. The Israeli occupation continue to violate the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. These policies are met with the state of silence from the international community. This anniversary came in the light of siege imposed on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank by Israel, which is a violation to all the international law principles.
The anniversary of Balfour Declaration is an occasion to remind the international community and the United Nations of its legal and moral obligations to end human rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories, to abandon political considerations when dealing with them, and to invite British lawmakers to call for a review of the Balfour Declaration in a way that would do justice to the Palestinian people.
ICSPR shares the Palestinian people their condemnation of the British Prime Minister Theresa May commemoration Balfour Declaration as their country achievement. ICSPR consider this step as a political insolence and denial of the Palestinian suffering. ICSPR condoms the Israeli violation against the Palestinian people an the international community silence. ICSPR calls the following:
1- ICSPR calls the British government and the British parliament officially to apologize for Balfour Declaration, in order to ensure a clear British recognition of its international responsibilities for the suffering of the Palestinian people because of this promise and to recognize an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
2- ICSPR urges the international community to stand in this occasion to ensure respecting the rights of the Palestinian people and to turn this event into an opportunity for real and effective actions to ensure respecting the Palestinian human rights and to assist victims by helping the Palestinian people to self-determination.
3- ICSPR calls for adopting a national, Arab and international strategy based on internationalization the conflict with the Israeli occupation and its allies. It also calls for putting pressure on Britain to shoulder its moral and legal responsibilities in the apology, compensation and recognition Palestinian rights, and to appeal to the UN General Assembly to adopt a resolution condemning the Balfour Declaration.
4- ICSPR calls upon the Palestinian leadership to ensure the success of the Palestinian reconciliation and the restoration of national unity and transforming it into a reality. The Palestinian government should lift the collective punishment of the Gaza Strip immediately, agree on a national program and rebuild the institutions of the political system based on partnership and democracy. Schemes of the Israeli occupation and its allies.
