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"The Balfour declaration… an interesting history for us, but not an honorable one," said Straw
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LONDON,
November 15 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - British Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw blamed his nation's own imperial past for the
chronic troubles of the Middle East, in an interview published Friday,
November 15, in the New Statesman magazine.
"A
lot of the problems we are having to deal with now, I have to deal
with now, are a consequence of our colonial past," said Straw,
referring to a range of crisis-stricken Middle East countries
previously occupied by the United Kingdom, including
12-year-sanction-hit Iraq and 54-year-occupied Palestine.
"The
odd lines for Iraq's borders were drawn by Brits," he said,
quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Britain
invaded Iraq during World War I, when it was part of the German-allied
Ottoman Empire, then administered it under a League of Nations mandate
until 1932.
Straw
also spoke of the notorious Balfour Declaration that gave Jews the
right of a national home in Palestine.
"The
Balfour declaration and the contradictory assurances which were being
given to Palestinians in private at the same time as they were being
given to the Israelis –again, an interesting history for us, but not
an honorable one," said Straw.
The
Balfour declaration, named after then foreign secretary Arthur
Balfour, gave Jews the green light to occupy what was then
British-controlled Palestine and establish the state of Israel on its
territory.
On
November 2, 1917, under Jewish pressure, Balfour wrote rich Jewish
politician Lord Rothschild a letter of 68 words promising a Jewish
homeland in Palestine.
Balfour
said the British government viewed "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."
The
letter was aimed at garnering Jewish support for the Allies in World
War I and later became the basis for international support for the
founding of the modern state of Israel.
After
World War II, the United States became the dominant western power.
Harry Truman, to curry favor with New York’s Jews in his election
– a pattern that has been followed since then – pressured the U.N.
to adopt a resolution approving the Balfour Declaration and a plan to
partition Palestine into two separate states – one for the Jews and
the other for the Palestinians.
Two
scraps of paper gave Jews (a very small population) the right to take
56% of the Palestinian’s home – actually, the best part of the
house, while they, the owners of the house (a by far larger
population), were given the "right" to keep 44% of their
home (and the worst part).
As
the March 18th editorial of the New Statesman, which challenged the
passed over Palestinian rights and occupation, put it in a nutshell,
"Go to the heart of the dispute and you are left with two
fundamental points. First, the Jewish state is a creation of the
Western powers… later, the idea of Israel became the Second World
War allied powers' version of the final solution to Europe's Jewish
‘problem’.’
"Arabs
in general and Palestinians in particular naturally wonder why the
tragic results of Europe's inability to tolerate a harmless minority
should be exported to them. As for the Jewish claim to biblical lands,
it makes no more sense to the Arab mind than an Italian claim to
establish a Roman state along the length of the A5 would to the
British."
In
addition to the troubled Middle East, Straw also acknowledged
"some quite serious mistakes" in India and Pakistan, jewels
of the British empire before their 1947 independence, as well as
Britain's "less than glorious role" in Afghanistan.
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