Britain’s act of ‘colonial arrogance’ created living injustice for Palestinians, says PSNA

Asia Pacific Report

Today marks 108 years since the 1917 Balfour Declaration and New Zealand pro-Palestinian protest groups have condemned this infamous date in rallies across the country.

“Britain promised a land that wasn’t theirs to give,” said Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) co-chair Maher Nazzal.

“That single act of colonial arrogance set in motion more than a century of displacement, occupation, and suffering for the Palestinian people.

• READ MORE: More than a century on: The Balfour Declaration explained
• Israel blocks vast majority of Gaza aid agreed under ceasefire deal
• Other Gaza reports

“For Palestinians, the Balfour Declaration is not history; it’s a living injustice that continues today.

“It’s time for truth and accountability,” Nazzal declared in a post today.

“It’s time for the world, including Aotearoa New Zealand, to stand firmly for justice, equality, and the right of Palestinians to live free on their land.”

Reporting on the Auckland rally and march yesterday, Bruce King said Janfrie Wakim, a longtime stalwart of pro-Palestine activism in Aotearoa New Zealand, had criticised the Balfour Declaration that had promised Palestine as a Jewish state.

‘Mendacious, deceitful’
She quoted the late British journalist and Middle East expert Robert Fisk calling it “the most mendacious, deceitful and hypocritical document in British history”.

Opposition Labour MP and shadow attorney-general Vanushi Walters outlined discussions over sanctions legislation against Israel in preparation for the party winning next year’s general election.

The opposition Labour Party currently leads in most opinion polls.

Greens MP Ricardo Menéndez protested against the NZ government having signed a free trade agreement with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) earlier this year.

This week, the rebel RSF (Rapid Support Forces) fighters that the UAE is accused of backing overran the city of El Fasher, capital of Darfur in Sudan, and carried out massacres of civilians, reports the United Nations.

Al Jazeera reports the Balfour Declaration (Balfour’s “promise” in Arabic) turned the Zionist aim of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine into a reality when Britain publicly pledged to establish “a national home for the Jewish people” there.

The pledge is generally viewed as one of the main catalysts of the Nakba — the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 – and the brutality that the emerging Zionist state of Israel inflicted on the Palestinian people.

It is regarded as one of the most controversial and criticised documents in the modern history of the Arab world and has puzzled historians for decades.

Israel has waged a two-year war on the besieged enclave of Gaza killing more than 68,000 people, including 20,000 children. Israel has killed more than 200 Palestinians in Gaza since the ceasefire began on October 10.