Mondoweiss
Balfour Declaration: Britain broke its feeble promise to the Palestinians
Jonathan Cook on November 2, 2017
Poster for the Make It Right campaign on the anniversary of the Balfour
Declaration
There is more than a little irony in Israeli prime minister Benjamin
Netanyahu's decision to attend a "celebration" dinner this week in London
with his British counterpart, Theresa May, marking the centenary of the
Balfour Declaration.
Palestinian objections to the 1917 document are well-known. Britain's Lord
Balfour had no right to promise a "national home for the Jewish people" in
Palestine, on the land of another people.
But Israelis have been taught a different history in which they, not the
Palestinians, were betrayed.
In 1939, Britain appeared to revoke its pledge, stating "unequivocally" that
it would not establish a Jewish state in Palestine. Limits on Jewish
immigration were imposed, at a time when Europe's Jews were fleeing the Nazi
Holocaust.
It was for this reason that nearly a quarter of a century ago, in his book A
Place Among the Nations, Netanyahu accused Britain of perfidy.
One can understand the reluctance of Israelis today to concede the pivotal
role provided by Britain. The Balfour Declaration is an embarrassing
reminder that a Jewish state was the fruit of a transparently colonial
project.
In fact, Britain assisted the Zionists as best it could, given the need to
weigh its imperial interests. Restrictions on immigration were introduced
under the severe strain of a three-year armed uprising by Palestinians,
determined to prevent their country being given away.
Historian Rashid Khalidi has noted that the Palestinian revolt of the late
1930s included possibly the longest-ever anti-colonial general strike. It
posed such a threat that Britain committed thousands of extra soldiers to
repress the insurgency, even as war loomed in Europe.
By the time Britain departed Palestine in 1948, it had overseen three
decades in which the Zionists were allowed to develop the institutions of
statehood: a government-in-waiting, the Jewish Agency; a proto-army in the
Haganah; and a land and settlement division known as the Jewish National
Fund.
By contrast, any signs of Palestinian nationalism, let alone
nation-building, were ruthlessly crushed. By the end of the Arab revolt,
less than a decade before the Palestinians would face a campaign of ethnic
cleansing by the Zionists, Palestinian society lay in ruins.
Israel learnt two lessons from Britain that guided its subsequent struggle
to quash Palestinian attempts at liberation.
First, Israel continued the draconian measures of British colonial rule. In
the early 1950s, Menachem Begin, leader of the pre-state Irgun militia and a
future Israeli prime minister, famously called Britain's emergency
regulations "Nazi laws".
Nonetheless, they were incorporated into the military orders Israel uses
against Palestinians under occupation. Significantly, the regulations are
also still in force inside Israel against the country's large minority of
Palestinian citizens, one in five of the population. Israel has yet to end
its seven-decade state of emergency.
The other lesson derives from the wording of the Balfour Declaration. It
referred to the native Palestinians - then 90 percent of Palestine's
inhabitants - as "existing non-Jewish communities". It promised only to
protect their "civil and religious rights", denying them recognition as a
nation deserving of political and social rights.
Israel followed suit. Palestinians in Israel were characterised as "the
minorities", or generic "Israeli Arabs", rather than Palestinians. Israel's
perverse nationality laws assign them largely religious classifications as
Druze, Arameans (Christians) and Arabs (increasingly synonymous with
Muslims).
In occupied East Jersualem, Palestinians are denied all national and
institutional representation. And in the West Bank, the powers of the
Palestinian Authority - supposedly the Palestinians' fledgling government -
extend no further than acting as a security contractor for Israel and
carrying out municipal services like garbage collection. In practice, the
PA's severely circumscribed authority is confined to a tiny fraction of the
West Bank.
As a result, the Palestinians' national ambitions have shrunk precipitously:
from Yasser Arafat's struggle for one secular democratic state in all
Palestine, to today's enclaves in Gaza and slivers of the West Bank.
Israel has consistently rejected for Palestinians the very
self-determination it once demanded from the British.
Netanyahu's government is preparing to nullify any lingering hopes of
Palestinian statehood with the most significant move towards annexation of
Palestinian territory in 40 years, when Jerusalem was annexed. The plan is
to greatly expand Jerusalem's boundaries to include large Jewish settlements
in the West Bank like Maale Adumim.
In addition, Netanyahu has reportedly promised $230 million to build five
highways in the West Bank, aiding movement between Israel and the
settlements.
Is there an opposition? Avi Gabbay, new leader of the centre-left Zionist
Union, sounds no different from the far-right. Last month he stated: "I
believe all of the Land of Israel [historic Palestine] is ours." No West
Bank settlement would be evacuated, even for the sake of peace, he added.
Britain fulfilled its promise to the Zionists in full, but broke even its
feeble commitment to the Palestinians to protect their civil and religious
rights. An apology from Britain is long overdue, as are efforts to repair
the damage it initiated 100 years ago.
A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.
