RAMALLAH: Thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip held protests on Thursday marking the centennial anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, in which Britain called for “a national home for the Jewish people.” In Ramallah, where the central West Bank event took place, hundreds of Palestinians, most of them students wearing black T-shirts, walked from the city centre to the nearby office of the British Cultural Centre, yelling slogans against the 1917 letter that shaped the fate of the Middle East.
The protesters waved black flags and carried banners denouncing Arthur Balfour, former British foreign secretary and author of the letter, for promising their homeland to another people.
“A promise from those who don’t own to those who are not entitled,” read one slogan in reference to the November 2, 1917 promise to Jews of a homeland in Palestine, which was then inhabited by around 800,000 Palestinian Arabs.
“Your promise is going to fail... and our right will win,” and “We will not forget and will not forgive,” read other posters.
“Britain should apologise for its historic mistake and rectify it,” read another, reflecting Palestinian demands placed on the British government.
In East Jerusalem, dozens of Palestinians held a sit-in outside the British Consulate General to protest the Balfour Declaration and to call on Britain to apologise to the Palestinian people.
Israeli police quelled the protesters when some raised the Palestinian flag and arrested on person, according to witnesses. The protesters handed letters to British diplomats written by students about the Balfour Declaration.
The Palestinian Ministry of Education said 100,000 such letters were handed over to the British Consul General in Jerusalem.
Hundreds of protesters also gathered in Gaza outside the main United Nations building, carrying signs denouncing the brief-yet-influential historical document and also calling on Britain to apologise.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Malki said in a statement on Thursday that, after all efforts failed to dissuade the British government from holding a ceremonial dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to mark the 100th anniversary, the Palestinian Authority finds itself compelled to bring legal proceedings against the British government in British, European and international courts.
He said that he will soon hire a British law firm to follow up on these legal proceedings in order to “lift the historic injustice inflicted on the Palestinian people.” — dpa
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