Fatah: Balfour Declaration was “the crime of the century”

Image posted on Falestinona, the website of Fatah’s Information and Culture Commission in Lebanon

The image shows a picture of former British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour being burned, in a reference to the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration on Nov. 2, 2017.

Text on image: “The Balfour Promise (i.e., Declaration)

The crime of the century, and our people will not forgive Britain”

[Falestinona, website of Fatah’s Information and Culture Commission in Lebanon, Oct. 30, 2017]

The article appears in the October 2017 edition of the magazine of Fatah’s Information and Culture Commission in Lebanon, Al-Quds, and was posted on the commission’s website Falestinona on Oct. 30, 2017.

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.