“A person can only be born in one place. However, he may die several times elsewhere: in the exiles and prisons, and in a homeland transformed by the occupation and oppression into a nightmare.”
–Mahmoud Darwish
Image of Arthur Balfour and his letter
to Lionel Rothschild, infamously known
as Balfour Declaration
The Balfour Declaration was a letter written on November 2, 1917 by British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lionel Walter Rothschild, in which he expressed the British government’s support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine states:
“His Majesty’s Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
The long-term effects of the Balfour Declaration, and the British government’s involvement in Palestinian affairs, are felt even today. The declaration, in the words of Mahmoud Abbas, cannot be forgotten. A further dent to Palestinian cause was the latest remarks of the Saudi Crown Prince, Muhammad Bin Salman who, unable to comprehend how Palestinians were betrayed in the past through force, expulsion, agreements, slammed Palestinian authorities for not accepting the wish of Donald Trump who has declared East Jerusalem as Israel’s capital few month ago.
