Content area
Full Text
The year 2017 marks 100 years since the Balfour Declaration, 70 years since the United Nations General Assembly "Partition" Resolution 181, 50 years of the Israeli occupation, and 10 years of the illegal siege and blockade on Gaza Strip.
However, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict did not start with the 1948 War- which resulted in the occupation of 78% of Mandatory Palestine which became Israel, and the expulsion of about 80% of the Palestinian people from their homes to become refugees - or with the 1967 occupation of the remaining parts of Palestine: East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The conflict started long before the Balfour Declaration of November 2,1917. It started with the creation of the modern Zionist movement, which aimed to bring Jews from all over the world and settle them in Palestine, with a clear intention of creating a Jewish state regardless of what the fate of the original people of the country would be and, later, in disregard of the Balfour Declaration, which stated: ".. .it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine." This promise was not kept by the United Kingdom, and the Palestinian people were expelled from their country, becoming refugees, victims of the UK conspiracy with the Zionist movement. The UK had no right whatsoever to promise the Jews a national homeland in a country that did not belong to it but to the people who had been living there for dozens of centuries-the Palestinian people.
The UK has to apologize to the Palestinian people for the wrong done against them and make up for its mistake. This should happen by way of the UK recognizing the State of Palestine and providing practical help to bring about this recognition to become a reality on the ground.
Means and methods to grab Arab land
Since the beginning of the Zionist movement and to this day, the core of the conflict has been the land. Different means and methods were applied by the Zionist movement before 1948 War, and by the State of Israel after its creation as a result of that war, to obtain land.
Successive Israeli governments and various agencies used and invented...