PMF... Britain should apologize for its 1917 declaration endorsing the founding of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and should recognize Palestine as a state, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Thursday. Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly, Abbas said that the Palestinian people had suffered greatly because of the Balfour Declaration in which Britain said it favored the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine but that this should not undermine the rights of others living there
“We ask Great Britain, as we approach 100 years since this infamous declaration, to draw the necessary lessons and to bear its historic, legal, political, material and moral responsibility for the consequences of this declaration, including an apology to the Palestinian people for the catastrophes, misery and injustice this declaration created and to act to rectify these disasters and remedy its consequences, including by the recognition of the state of Palestine,” Abbas said. “This is the least Great Britain can do.”
The British mission to the United Nations had no immediate comment.
Abbas raised the 1917 declaration – named for Arthur Balfour, then the British foreign secretary – in the context of other milestones, including the 1948 U.N. General Assembly resolution partitioning Palestine into two states and the 1967 war when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking a short time later at the annual gathering of world leaders, derided Abbas for focusing on the declaration and alluded to the possibility of the Palestinians suing Britain for it.
“President Abbas just attacked from this podium the Balfour Declaration. He is preparing a lawsuit against Britain for that declaration from 1917. That’s almost 100 years ago. Talk about being stuck in the past,” Netanyahu said.
An online video depicts Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki reading a speech on behalf of Abbas in which he asks the Arab Summit meeting in July to support the Palestinians in the preparation of a legal case against the British government over the declaration.
MUTUAL RECRIMINATIONS
The mutual recriminations in Thursday’s speeches underlined the low expectations for any revival of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. As it happened, the sole speaker between the two Middle East neighbors was the prime minister of Norway, where the secret Israeli-Palestinian peace talks took place leading to the 1993 Oslo accords.
The central issues to be resolved in the conflict include borders, the future of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which most nations regard as illegal, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem.
Peace talks last collapsed in 2014 and there are few hopes for a resumption anytime soon in part because of Israeli anger at Palestinian attacks and Palestinian criticism of Israel’s construction of settlements on occupied land where Palestinians want to establish a state.
The Balfour Declaration states: “His Majesty’s Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country,” it said.
Critics argue that Arabs were in the majority at the time and that the declaration failed to adequately take that into account.
In his speech, Netanyahu excoriated the United Nations for routinely passing resolutions critical of Israel, saying: “The U.N., begun as a moral force, has become a moral farce.”
He said this would change as nations increasingly seek Israeli cooperation on terrorism, cyber-security, intelligence-sharing and areas such as health and agriculture.
He invited Abbas to speak at Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, saying he would “gladly” come to Ramallah to speak at the Palestinian Legislative Council.
It was unclear if his offer was meant seriously. The Palestinian parliament has not met since 2007 and the first Arab leader to make a speech at the Knesset, Egypt’s Anwar Sadat in 1977, was assassinated in 1981 after making peace with Israel.
uprootedpale...a-huge-mistake/
posts#3] Mario Milano
Abbas, Netanyahu clash over Balfour declaration at UN summit
DAILY SABAH WITH WIRES
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas demanded British apology for its Balfour declaration in 1917 endorsing the founding of a Jewish homeland in Palestine on Thursday. Abbas also urged Britain to recognize Palestine as a state. Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly, Abbas criticized Israel for expanding its illegal settlements in the occupied territories while calling Israeli settlers’ attitudes towards Palestinians as “same as terrorists.”
After Abbas delivered his own speech, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his address to the U.N. slammed the Palestinian lawsuit against British government over the issuing of the 1917 Balfour act. Both presented sharply different views of the path toward reviving peace talks that have been stalled for more than two years. “I am ready to negotiate all final status, but one thing I will never negotiate is the right to a one and only Jewish state,” Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu rejects a settlement freeze, rejects the 1967 borders as the basis for talks and rejects any division of Jerusalem. He has also said he would not uproot settlements. Slamming Israel’s “abhorrent” settlement policy, Abbas demanded the United Nations take a bigger role in the effort to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As the 50th anniversary of Israel’s occupation approaches in June, Abbas urged the 193-member General Assembly to declare 2017 “the international year to end the Israeli occupation of our land and our people.” He called on the Security Council to take up a resolution on the settlements, adding, in a clear reference to the United States, “we hope no one will cast a veto.” Netanyahu rejected the idea of greater U.N. involvement in the peace process.
“We will not accept any attempt by the U.N. to dictate terms to Israel. The road to peace runs through Jerusalem and Ramallah, not through New York,” Netanyahu said at U.N. summit.
The Israel-Palestine conflict began in 1917 when the British government, in the now-famous “Balfour Declaration,” called for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”. In 1948, a new state “Israel” was established inside historical Palestine. Around 15,000 Palestinians were killed, some 800,000 displaced, and 531 Arab villages destroyed in attacks by armed Jewish groups at the time.
The Palestinian diaspora has since become one of the largest in the world. Palestinian refugees are now scattered across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and other countries, while many have since settled in refugee camps in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip.
According to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), there are currently more than 5 million registered Palestinian refugees. For many Palestinians, the right to return to their homes in historical Palestine isn’t just a key political demand, but a fundamental human right.
www.veteranst...n-at-un-summit/
Poster Comment:
it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine...
Balfour Declaration was addressed to Rothschild and can be considered a contract wherein Jews would have to acquire land legally through negotiation and paying the purchase price; instead of buying land Jews bought guns (with counterfit British bank notes) to drive Palestinians out.
Failing to carry out their part of the contract means Rothschilds are liable as the principal party for damages which likely would run in the trillions; an independent court would wipe out their ill-gotten gains and eliminate this menace to our civilization.
Zharkov: : The British mission to the United Nations had no immediate comment.
Britain is no longer Great. It's just Britain, a common country, with common officials who have no comment.
Palistinian people have a point worth a lawsuit. No British official ever asked them to vote for a jewish homeland.
So Israel has no legal basis to exist other than by UN decree, a piece of paper that has no legal meaning at all.
Shura... Britain has done similar things in dividing the whole Middle East including the creation of the Jewish state of Saudi Arabia