PA Culture Minister on "ominous" Balfour Declaration was "a mark of disgrace in the history of humanity," A "historic mistake"

Headline: “[PA] Minister Abu Saif on the anniversary of the Balfour Promise (i.e., Declaration): The land belongs to its owners”

“[PA] Minister of Culture Atef Abu Saif said that the land has and will continue to belong to its owners, and that all of the invalid promises will not change the eternal truth by one iota: Palestine belongs to the Palestinians, and the invaders will go away as those who preceded them went away…

He added: ‘The ominous promise, in which the one giving the promise permitted giving what is not his to one who has no right, was a mark of disgrace in the history of humanity. The historic mistake will only be corrected when the right returns to its owners.’”

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.