On the occasion of the 103 anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, the Palestine National Council (PNC) issued a statement stressing that the crime of Balfour Declaration 1917, which the British government at that time provided all forms of support to the Zionist gangs in order to implement the declaration, established all the Israeli crimes committed against our people and their rights, including the calamity, displacement, and forced asylum inside and outside the Palestinian homeland, and depriving the Palestinians of self-determination and living in the independent state with the city of Jerusalem as its capital.

PNC added that Palestine was unjustly granted to the Jews at the expense of the Palestinian people who were more than 96% of the population of Palestine. This crime represented the highest level of injustice, ethnic cleansing and violation of the principles of international law, by uprooting and displacement of more than half of the Palestinian people, the destruction of more than 531 Palestinian villages and towns, and the perpetration of hundreds of bloody massacres against our people.

PNC affirms that Trump Administration is continuing the implementation of the chapters of this ongoing crime with the so-called "Deal of the Century" and the annexation of Jerusalem and other lands, legalization of settlements and the abolition of the right of return, and the subsequent practical measures that followed within more than three years, the latest of which is the classification of Jerusalem in official American documents as part of Israel, which is a flagrant violation of international law and United Nations resolutions related to the city, especially Resolution 181 of 1947, as well as financing projects in settlements, in grave violation of Resolution 2334, which considered all settlement activities illegal and must stop.

PNC calls on the House of Commons and the Lords to bear the responsibility for pressuring the British government to apologize for the injustice inflicted on the Palestinian people, and to correct its sin by recognizing the independent state of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital in accordance with the relevant international legitimacy decisions, and to compensate our people for their suffering and losses as a result of this declaration, and to enable refugees to return to their homes according to Resolution 194.

PNC also appeals to the world countries and their parliaments that have not recognized the state of Palestine to recognize it, to support fairness to Palestinian people, who are still paying a heavy price of blood and displacement, as a result of the implementation of Balfour Declaration against Palestinians land and legitimate rights.

The Council also appreciates the announcement by independent Palestinian figures to file a lawsuit against the British government with the Palestinian courts as a prelude to moving the lawsuit towards the regional and international courts to hold British government accountable for its colonial promise, and to hold it fully responsible for the disastrous repercussions that affected the Palestinian people and their land as a result of this declaration.

Despite passing of all those years and the attempts that accompanied to erase the existence of the Palestinian people on their land, we as Palestinians adhere to our historical and legal right in our entire land, PNC affirms, to continue the struggle against the Israeli occupation and confront all its policies, procedures and crimes of killing, arrest, settlement and violation of Islamic and Christian sanctities, and thwarting the Israeli projects and plans to abolish our presence on our land.

As a reminder, the Balfour Declaration was a statement issued by British Foreign Secretary Arthur

James Balfour, on 2nd of November 1917, in the form of a letter he addressed to Lionel Rothschild

- one of the leaders of the Zionist movement in Britain - in which he stated: “His Majesty’s Government view with favour 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 preamble and Article Two of the British Mandate for Palestine, which was approved by the League of Nations at that time, and its implementation began in 1922, stipulated that: “The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home…”. This is what actually happened during the period of the British occupation of Palestine, which ended in May

1948, with the Zionist gangs controlling more than two-thirds of Palestine land, and the displacement of more than half of Palestinian people, through massacres and intimidation and terror.

2 November, 2020