New Delhi: Britain’s foreign secretary Boris Johnson on Sunday defended his predecessor’s role in the creation of Israel. The Balfour Declaration was issued in the form of a letter from the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Arthur James Balfour, to Lord Rothschild.
“In paving the way for the creation of Israel, saying two sovereign states for Israelis and Palestinians remains the only viable solution for peace,” he said.
This Thursday marks the centenary of the Balfour Declaration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to London to mark the anniversary.
The signing of Balfour declaration remains controversial to this day. It led to the creation of the Jewish state and displacement of millions of Palestinians and decades of internal strife between the two communities that continues to this day.
“I am proud of Britain’s part in creating Israel,” current Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson wrote in the Telegraph newspaper on Sunday, adding the document was “indispensable to the creation of a great nation.”
The declaration 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 conflict that ensued with the Zionist state of Israel.
Regarded as one of the most controversial and contested documents in the modern history of the Arab world the declaration received widespread support from Allied powers during World War I.
In a War Cabinet meeting in September 1917, British ministers decided that “the views of President Wilson should be obtained before any declaration was made”. Indeed, according to the cabinet’s minutes on October 4, the ministers recalled Arthur Balfour confirming that Wilson was “extremely favorable to the movement”.
France was also involved and announced its support prior to the issuing of the Balfour Declaration.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, in which Great Britain’s Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour stated in a note to his colleague, Lord Rothschild, that, “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…”
Zionists have long viewed this document as a “promissory note” giving a Great Power “seal of approval” to their quest to establish a separate Jewish state in Palestine.
With Balfour Declaration and the creation of the state of Israel, Britain achieved its goal of creating a colonial outpost that would project and protect its interests in the Eastern Mediterranean.
