Barhoum declares Israel is a “permanent and well-rooted enemy” of the Palestinians

Excerpt of a column by Bassem Barhoum, regular columnist for the official PA daily

Headline: “Palestinian nationalism – who are its greatest enemies and who are its greatest friends?”

“[Palestinian] nationalism has had many enemies at different stages, but the permanent enemy is the Zionist movementand its expression, which is the State of Israel. This is because Zionism, whether it is Jewish or Christian (the Zionist Christians) [parentheses in source], was established on the basis of denying the existence of the Palestinian people, and from here came the most dangerous Zionist slogan ‘A land without a people for a people without a land.’ It may be that this slogan along with the 1917 Balfour Promise (i.e., Declaration) are what necessitated expressing Palestinian nationalism, as Zionism and Zionist Israel are the permanent and well-rooted enemies of Palestinian nationalism and of the Palestinian people’s connection to its land.”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 19, 2023]

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.