Monday November 03, 2008 02:42 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News

November 2nd marks the 91st anniversary of the evil British Balfour Declaration, the first declaration that Palestine should be used as a “national home for the Jewish people”. The Balfour Declaration did say that the Jewish home should not displace the existing Palestinian population of Palestine, a stipulation that the later 1947 United Nations Recommendation that actually called for a Jewish state did not include.

The 1947 Recommendation said that the land of Palestine should be split in half, with half to be used as the Jewish state, and half to remain in the hands of the indigenous Palestinian population.

According to Hassan Afif Al-Hassan, “On November 2nd, 1917, the British foreign secretary, Balfour, presented a letter that has been called the “Balfour Declaration” to Lord Rothschild, committing the British Government support for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. Although the declaration carried the name of Balfour, it was actually framed and authored by Jewish Zionists. It was a one sentence statement drafted by Zionist linguistic and legal experts to lay the grounds for a future Jewish statehood and limit the rights of 'the non-Jewish' [Arab] population to religious and civil rights without even referring to them as Arabs.”

The British government, which controlled Palestine at the time, did not go so far as to promise the creation of a Jewish state on Palestinian land (that came later, in 1947), but the Declaration did provide the impetus for a growing Jewish immigration into Palestine during the decades following the 1917 Declaration.

A full description of the historical context and significance of the Balfour Declaration can be found by clicking the link below.