GAZA CITY (Dispatches) – Palestinians have taken part in protests in the besieged Gaza Strip and other occupied territories to demand the UK recognize an independent Palestinian state and accept responsibility for its crime in fabricating Israel.
The protests came on the 104th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, a public pledge made by the UK, expressing its support for “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. The statement came in the form of a letter from the UK’s then-foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour.
Palestinian factions organized rallies, with protesters holding banners and chanting slogans urging the UK to stand by its responsibility and recognize an independent Palestinian state with Al-Quds as its capital and to acknowledge the suffering caused by the Balfour statement.
Hamas spokesperson Abdel Latif al-Qanou said the UK is fully responsible for an “historical, political and moral crime” towards the Palestinian people.
“Since that pledge, our people have been in a continuous suffering and an open battle with the Israeli occupation in order to obtain their rights in their land that was gifted to Israel to establish its lands,” he told Al Jazeera.
Al-Qanou said the UK should compensate Palestinians for the injustice they have suffered as a result of the declaration.
“No matter how long it takes, we won’t give up our rights to resist and struggle until it is liberated from occupation,” he added.
For his part, Aref Naim, a member of the Fida Party, said the “ominous pledge” caused mass displacement, killing and land confiscation.
“The international community is silent about the crime of stealing Palestinian land and displacing thousands of Palestinians until this day. The Palestinian people paid a heavy price and still do.”
Naim called on the international community to increase the pressure on Israel to end its decades-long occupation of Palestinian territories, and to implement all United Nations resolutions, including the right of return and the right to self-determination for Palestinians.
The Balfour Declaration is widely seen as having launched the process that would lead to the establishment of Israel in 1948.
In the war surrounding the creation of the Zionist entity, more than 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their homes in what Palestinians call the Nakba, or “catastrophe”.
Earlier this week, President Mahmoud Abbas issued a presidential decree ordering the national flag to be flown at half-staff on November 2 of each year marking the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, according to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.
The decree expressed the importance of “reminding the world in general and the United Kingdom in particular of the suffering of the Palestinian people and their rights to achieve independence, statehood and self-determination”.
“Today marks 104 years since the Balfour declaration. It has been a century of pain for us the Palestinian people but also of perseverance. It is time for Britain to apologize for its colonial acts & atone: Recognize the State of Palestine and sanction transgressions of the law,” Palestinian Ambassador to Britain Husam Zomlot tweeted.
The Arab League called on the United Kingdom to “correct this historic mistake and assume its historical, legal and moral responsibility by apologizing to the Palestinian people, and recognizing the Palestinian state on June 4, 1967, lines with East Jerusalem as its capital in support of achieving a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in accordance with the vision of a two-state solution.”
The Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) said the Balfour Declaration led to the creation of a colonial occupation regime in Palestine, which is exercising the policies of mass expulsion, ethnic cleansing, settlement construction and expansion, Judaization, land confiscation and property destruction, and denies Palestinians of their legitimate national rights, adding “this dramatic event … has left a dark stain on human history and consciousness and undermined the values of freedom and justice”.