A.M. ELNAHAS.
Mr. Robert John, the distinguished historian revisionist from the Institute for Historic Review, teaches us that “attempts to review historical records impartially often reveal that blame, culpability, or dishonor are not to be attached wholly to one side in the conflicts of the last hundred years. To seek to untangle fact from propaganda is a worthy study, for it increases understanding of how we got where we are and it should help people resist exploitation by powerful and destructive interests in the present and future, by exposing their working in the past”.
I agree to that and urge upon our younger generations to search and study, from various sources, all the material they can get to formulate their proper opinion and refine their overview and deepen their knowledge, but above all “Never To Forget” and always remind themselves of their fathers mistakes in the past so as never to repeat them in the future, and teach their children to teach their children and so on till that process becomes a tradition to be passed on rigorously from one generation to another.
The only successfully proven way to overcome the generation gap, is the accurate and constant transmission of traditions as the most solid base for a society’s collective conscience and culture. We learned that from the simple nomad tribes, who continue to maintain a strict social coherence just doing that, and as such all members of the tribe are active participants in the making of their tribe’s future.
Today, November the 2nd 2011, strikes the 94th memory of that infamous document a Government may ever produce. Thus I brought to you part of my last book in that regard, “Requiem For The Dream”, as a reminder and a warning that over the Chess Board of the international political game, only interests prevail over logic or justice.. Only ice cold interests.
The sad thing about such a “civilised fact” is that the innocent (or if you wish the unprepared, ignorant, naïf, incompetent… make your own choice) settles the account! Always.
The main characteristics to notice about that document are:
Ø It was written and delivered one year before the end of the Great War (WWI).
Ø It preceded and became the pre-cursor to the most famous “Sykes/Picot Agreement”.
Ø It was the fruit of months of elaborated and intensive work of diplomacy, finance, deception and extortion.
Ø And as Arthur Koestler wrote: “one nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third, more than that, the country was still part of the Empire of a fourth, namely Turkey”.
Though I have a small correction to Mr. Koestler’s statement, mine would read: “A sovereign nation solemnly promised an ‘Extremist Political Movement’ the country of a second nation while still part of the Empire of a third”.
Anyway.. Here is the document.
The Balfour Declaration
Foreign Office
November 2nd, 1917
Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.
"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours 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."
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
Yours sincerely,
Arthur James Balfour
Now I will not tell stories about the past right in here, for I dedicated an entire book for that purpose entitled “Requiem For The Dream”. Instead I will come straight to the point: if you find in yourself the will and the need to have an active part, then get in touch with the “Palestinian Return Centre” and offer your assistance doing whatever you are fit and ready to do, any added effort is a mutual win for Palestinians in their inhuman “Diaspora”, but mostly for you to stand straight by the end of the day knowing that you have done once more the right thing.
Just allow me to place for you hereunder a brief account on Palestinians in their “Diaspora”, as per a UN report published in 2010:
Fast facts
The total number of displaced Palestinians worldwide is 7.1 million, including: 6.6 million refugees, and 427,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs). 67 percent of all Palestinians worldwide are either refugees or IDPs 4,766,670 refugees are registered with UNRWA. UNRWA definition of Palestinian: “People whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict”. As a rule, those displaced after 1948 do not qualify for UNRWA assistance - More than one million refugees whose displacement dates back to 1947-1948 are not registered with UNRWA. 340,016 Palestinians are registered with UNHCR.
Timeline
29 November 1947: By approving Resolution 181, the UN General Assembly adopted a plan to partition the 1923-48 British Mandate of Palestine. November 1947-July 1949: War in the British Mandate of Palestine led to the flight of over 720,000 Palestinians, according to the UN. Non-UN estimates for the number of refugees displaced in 1948 range from 400,000 to almost one million. 9 April 1948: The Deir Yassin massacre just outside Jerusalem in which over 100 Palestinians were killed, shocked civilian Palestinian populations throughout the British Mandate of Palestine. 11 December 1948: By issuing Resolution 194, the UN General Assembly recognized the Palestinian refugees' right to return to their homes. To date, this resolution has not been implemented. 14 May 1948 - July 1949: Hours after British withdrawal from the British Mandate of Palestine on 14 May 1948, the state of Israel was declared on 78 percent of that territory. Following the Arab rejection of the UN Partition Plan to divide Palestine between Jews and Arabs, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq(*) invaded Israel. July 1949: Israel reached armistice agreements with Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt. 1 May 1950: UNRWA began its field operations. 5-10 June 1967: War broke out between Israel and Egypt, Syria and Jordan. As a result of the conflict, an additional 100,000-300,000 Palestinians became displaced. 1967-present day: Estimates vary greatly on the annual rate of new displacements, but Palestinian sources cite up to 20,000 newly displaced persons per year. Reasons for new displacement Include Israel's construction of a separation barrier in the West Bank and Jerusalem, the construction of illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, the revocation of residency rights and house demolitions.
The Palestinian Return Centre (PRC) is a Palestinian establishment that is primarily concerned with the problem of the dispersed Palestinians and their struggle to return to their homes. It is, in nature, an academic and media institution that aspires to serve as an information repository and forum of political activity on the Palestinian question and the issue of the return in particular.
The main aims of the PRC:
1. To promote the issue of the right to return both as a humanitarian and political concern.
2. To preserve the Palestinian identity and resist the attempts to resettle the dispersed Palestinians.
3. To increase and widen the awareness of the plight of the Palestinians in their places of refuge.
4. To inform the general public in Europe and in Britain in particular about the true dimensions of the Palestinian drama.
You can reach the PRC at:
PRC, Crown House, North Circular Road, London NW10 7PN, UK.
Tel: ++44 208 4530919
Fax: ++44 208 4530994
(*) Isn’t it strangely interesting the fact that these countries are the ones who by the most are subjected to and suffering from Israeli/American political, economic, diplomatic and even belligerent continuous pressures and intimidations?
How many attacks on Lebanon under various excuses?
What happened and is still happening to an already dismembered and divided Iraq, with Israeli firms based there, for communications and contracting deals or to have a foot closer to Iran?
Who is igniting sectarian unrests by his well trained infiltrators, in Egypt and Lebanon as in Jordan?
If you feel that I am manifesting the symptoms of a pathologic “National Paranoia”, then log out and may peace be upon you.
But you can also dig for yourself to discover the truth from the fantasy in what I said.
Pass On The Word.
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