LONDON, Nov 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Two years ago, a peer called on the British government to apologise for the “suffering” of Palestinians, 100 years after the Balfour Declaration.
The UK government’s declaration was the first commitment by a world power to a “Jewish national home” in Palestine.
Lord Warner said, the UK had failed to protect the rights of non-Jewish people in the region and should apologise.
The government said, there would be no apology but it would work for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
During questions in the House of Lords, the Foreign Office Minister, Baroness Anelay, told the independent peer that the government “will mark the centenary of Balfour with pride.”
However, she added, “We recognise that the declaration should have called for the protection of political rights of non-Jewish communities in Palestine, particularly their right to self-determination.
“This is why we support a two-state solution.”
In Nov, 1917, the then British Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, wrote a letter to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the Jewish community in Britain. It became an important element in the movement to create a Jewish state in Palestine, which culminated in the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.
Historians disagree as to what Balfour intended by his declaration. The letter makes no mention of the word “state” and insists that nothing should be done “which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”
Cross-bencher, Lord Warner, argued that, there was a “condition” to the declaration and successive UK governments “have failed to deliver that declaration – protection to the Palestinian people.”
He told the House, “Furthermore, should we not mark the centenary with a gracious apology from the British government in Parliament, for the suffering that failure has caused and try to make amends… with a clear commitment to recognition of a viable independent Palestinian state?”
