{"id":332820,"date":"2017-10-30T23:57:31","date_gmt":"2017-10-30T22:57:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/balfour-declaration-how-britain-broke-its-feeble-promise-to-the-palestinians\/"},"modified":"2017-10-30T23:57:31","modified_gmt":"2017-10-30T22:57:31","slug":"balfour-declaration-how-britain-broke-its-feeble-promise-to-the-palestinians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/balfour-declaration-how-britain-broke-its-feeble-promise-to-the-palestinians\/","title":{"rendered":"Balfour Declaration: How Britain broke its Feeble Promise to the Palestinians"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There is more than a little irony in Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s decision to attend a \u201ccelebration\u201d dinner this week in London with his British counterpart, Theresa May, marking the centenary of the Balfour Declaration.<\/p>\n

Palestinian objections to the 1917 document are well-known. Britain\u2019s Lord Balfour had no right to promise a \u201cnational home for the Jewish people\u201d in Palestine, on the land of another people.<\/p>\n

But Israelis have been taught a different history in which they, not the Palestinians, were betrayed.<\/p>\n

In 1939, Britain appeared to revoke its pledge, stating \u201cunequivocally\u201d that it would not establish a Jewish state in Palestine. Limits on Jewish immigration were imposed, at a time when Europe\u2019s Jews were fleeing the Nazi Holocaust.<\/p>\n

It was for this reason that nearly a quarter of a century ago, in his book A Place Among the Nations, Mr Netanyahu accused Britain of perfidy.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Historian Rashid Khalidi has noted that the Palestinian revolt…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There is more than a little irony in Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s decision to attend a \u201ccelebration\u201d 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\u2019s Lord Balfour had no right to promise a \u201cnational home […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2525,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-332820","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2525"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332820\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}