Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate submits a lawsuit against the British government for issuing the Balfour Declaration

Headline: “The [Palestinian] Journalists’ Syndicate met with the legal team supervising the submission of a lawsuit against ‘the Balfour Declaration’”

“The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate held a meeting yesterday [May 22, 2022] with the legal team supervising the submission of a lawsuit against the British government for its responsibility for the consequences of issuing ‘the Balfour Declaration’ (see note below -Ed.).

Lawyer Ben Emmerson briefed the syndicate on the legal proceedings that his team has been supervising for more than a year, which deal with submitting a lawsuit at a British court against the British government so that it will apologize for ‘the Balfour Declaration.’

Emmerson explained that he came to Palestine today for a visit that will last a week, during which he will meet with senior officials, ministers, politicians, and jurists. This is in the framework of preparing the lawsuit’s final case, which they intend to submit to the British legal system shortly.

Present at the meeting was Chairperson of the National Association of Independents Munib Al-Masri, who is one of a group of Palestinians representing the private sector who gave power of attorney to lawyer Ben Emmerson to submit a lawsuit against the British government…

Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate Chairperson Nasser Abu Bakr said that the legal team explained in detail that it is important to forcibly extract a ruling condemning ‘the Balfour Declaration’ from a British court…

He added: ‘The goal of this effort is to hold Britain responsible for our people’s tragedy, out of an assumption that all the decisions that were based on the Balfour Declaration – starting with the establishment of the occupation state and uprooting of the Palestinian people – are invalid and constitute a crime that has continued to this very day.’”

The Balfour Declaration of Nov. 2, 1917 was a letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Baron Rothschild stating that "His Majesty's government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." In 1922, the League of Nations adopted this and made the British Mandate "responsible for putting into effect the declaration," which led to the UN vote in favor of partitioning Mandatory Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state in 1947. In response, Britain ended its mandate on May 15, 1948, and the Palestinian Jews, who accepted the Partition Plan, declared the independent State of Israel. The Palestinian Arabs rejected the plan and together with 7 Arab states attacked Israel, in what is now known as Israel's War of Independence.