LONDON: The UK government’s continued refusal to apologize for the 1917 Balfour Declaration has been criticized by those who see the document as being at the root of today’s Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The growing demand for an apology is accompanied by pleas for a critical review of the UK’s foreign policy and its responsibilities toward the Palestinians.
“An apology is an important symbolic act,” said Prof. Ilan Pappé, director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. “But it should be accompanied by a sense of accountability, hence what I suggest is that a change of British current policy on Palestine is the best way to atone for the Balfour Declaration,” he said.
Today marks the centenary of the date of the controversial document. It was signed in 1917 by then-Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, who expressed his support for the creation of a “national home” for the Jewish people in Palestine and set in motion a series of events resulting in the creation of Israel in 1948.
The document also pledged that the “civil and religious rights” of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine would not be prejudiced, a promise that many argue the UK has broken, and for which the Palestinian people are now owed an apology.
“For decades one of the biggest grievances the Palestinians have is that there has been no recognition that they have been dealt an injustice,” said Karl Sabbagh, a Palestinian writer and documentary producer.
“Regardless of whether this injustice is rectified or not, it is a slap in the face to be told, effectively, ‘you have no grounds for complaint’,” he said.
The UK-based campaigning group, the Palestinian Return Centre, relaunched its Balfour Apology Campaign on Oct. 25, demanding that the UK government acknowledge its responsibility in the current divide between Israelis and Palestinians. The campaign is running a petition to demand an official apology from the government.
The UK has so far rejected calls for an apology, initially issuing an official statement in April that was followed by Prime Minister Theresa May’s address to Parliament in late October, in which she said the government would “certainly mark the centenary with pride.”
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson wrote in his Daily Telegraph column on Oct. 29 that the declaration was “indispensable to the creation of a great nation,” adding that the document fulfilled an “incontestable moral goal” and provided a “persecuted people with a safe and secure homeland.”
Johnson did go on to acknowledge that the caveat to safeguard the interests of the Palestinians “has not been fully realized.” He backed the concept of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with the borders based on the lines as they were before the 1967 war.
May will be marking the anniversary with a celebratory dinner with her Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and a select group of MPs, a move that has angered many who see Israel’s current expansionary policies and settlements in the West Bank as infringing on the rights and wellbeing of the Palestinian people.
There are other celebrations taking place in the UK, including an event organized by Balfour 100 bringing Christians and Jews together at the Royal Albert Hall in London for an evening of music and dance.
“There is also a very active lobbying effort in support of Israel, which has promoted the Balfour centenary as a time to celebrate the British-Israeli relationship rather than to take a critical view of the legacy of the declaration,” said Adam Sutcliffe, reader of history at King’s College London. Sutcliffe is also a member of the Independent Jewish Voices steering committee, which has recently produced a film called “100 Years After Balfour,” which examines the politician’s legacy.
“The UK government has, it seems, been persuaded that many British Jews would be very unhappy if they did not support this celebration,” he said.
Many are unhappy about the idea of “celebrating” the declaration, and rather call for the government to use the centenary as a chance to learn from the past.
“It is not an anniversary to celebrate,” said John Bond, spokesperson for the Balfour Project, a UK-based organization which aims to educate the government about the legacy of the declaration.
“It is a time to look afresh at the declaration and its outcomes,” he said. “We will continue working for an apology from our government. An apology is not just words. It must include a commitment to help improve the conditions in which many Palestinian people live, and to work for a just political settlement,” he said.
It is important that efforts to secure an apology are not misinterpreted as a way of questioning Israel’s right to exist, said Miranda Pinch, an activist and producer of a new documentary on the legacy of Balfour.
“I think that what is sought is an acknowledgment of accountability and failure on the part of the UK government, rather than an apology as such,” she said. “The problem with an apology is that it can be seen as a regret about the creation of Israel and, at this stage, I don’t think that would be helpful for anyone.”
She added that the UK government has failed “to hold Israel accountable in any meaningful way for its continued human rights violations, illegal occupation and land theft of what was left of historic Palestine.”
Sutcliffe added: “I’m not sure how helpful an official British apology would be; once the UK government starts to apologize for its colonial past, there would be many other apologies to make also.
“However, the UK government should certainly not be celebrating the Balfour Declaration. It should be encouraging a nuanced and critical approach, focusing attention on the negative impact of the declaration on Palestinians, who continue to suffer and to be denied basic justice and human rights, whether in the occupied West Bank, effectively still blockaded in Gaza, or in refugee camps elsewhere.”
UK’s refusal to apologize for Balfour draws criticism
UK’s refusal to apologize for Balfour draws criticism
Tunisia row over ‘repressive’ transfers of political detainees
- Weekly prison visits in Tunisia allow families to bring prisoners baskets of food to last them through the week
TUNIS: Several jailed Tunisian opposition figures have been transferred without prior notice to prisons far from their families in a move their lawyers and relatives on Friday denounced as “repressive.”
At least seven political figures were moved on Thursday from Mornaguia prison near Tunis to remote facilities, lawyer Dalila Msaddek told AFP.
Prominent figure Issam Chebbi was taken to a jail in Tunisia’s northernmost city of Bizerte, while Ridha BelHajj was moved to Siliana some two hours south of Tunis.
“They were moved without any warning to their families or lawyers,” said Msaddek.
She called the transfers “a form of harassment” aimed at making it harder for their Tunis-based families and lawyers to visit.
Weekly prison visits in Tunisia allow families to bring prisoners baskets of food to last them through the week.
Msaddek said some prison inmates resisted the move but were forcibly transferred.
In a letter from prison posted on social media, BelHajj denounced what he called a forced transfer “far from my family, my children, and my lawyers, in yet another attempt to break my will.”
He said he, Chebbi and Ghazi Chaouachi were “prisoners or conscience, not criminals.”
“What is happening today is a desperate attempt to silence free voices and intimidate anyone who dares to say ‘no’ to injustice and tyranny,” he wrote.
Since President Kais Saied’s power grab in July 2021, when he dissolved parliament and began ruling by decree, rights groups have warned of a sharp decline in civil liberties in the North African country.
In a video statement, Chebbi’s wife denounced the authorities’ move as “an injustice” and “abuse.”
She said she learned of the transfer during her scheduled weekly visit, and that her husband was informed just an hour before being moved.
Once a French military bunker built in 1932, Bizerte prison — Borj Erroumi — became infamous for its harsh conditions under Tunisia’s former longtime rulers Habib Bourguiba and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
All of the transferred prisoners were defendants in a mass trial last month that saw around 40 public figures, some staunch Saied critics, sentenced to long terms on charges including plotting against the state.
The trial drew international criticism, from France, Germany and the United Nations, which Saied dismissed as “blatant interference in Tunisia’s internal affairs.”
During a protest in Tunis demanding the release of jailed lawyer Ahmed Souab, public figures also condemned the prison transfers.
Souab had been a member of the defense team during the mass trial. He was detained on terrorism-related charges after claiming that judges were under political pressure to hand the defendants hefty sentences.
“We’re seeing a return to the old practices of the Ben Ali dictatorship which aimed at breaking the morale of political prisoners by moving them from one prison to another,” opposition figure Chaima Issa told AFP during the protest.
Also attending the rally, Chebbi’s wife said he was now detained in “inhumane” conditions after visiting him.
She said he was being held in the same room as 60 other inmates, deprived of even “basic standards of detention.”
Libya protesters call on PM to quit in third weekly march
- The clashes were sparked by the killing of an armed faction leader by a group aligned with Dbeibah’s government — the 444 Brigade which later fought a third group, the Radaa force that controls parts of eastern Tripoli and the city’s airport
TRIPOLI: Hundreds of protesters gathered in central Tripoli on Friday for the third week in a row to demand the resignation of UN-recognized Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah following recent clashes in Libya’s capital.
Demonstrators chanted “Dbeibah out,” “the people want the fall of the government,” and “long live Libya.”
At least 200 people had assembled by late afternoon, with several hundred more following suit later. Some blasted slogans on loudspeakers from their cars.
Libya is split between the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, led by Dbeibah, and a rival administration in the east controlled by the family of military strongman Khalifa Haftar.
The North African country has remained deeply divided since the 2011 NATO-backed revolt that toppled and killed longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi.
National elections scheduled for December 2021 were postponed indefinitely due to disputes between the two rival powers.
The recent unrest came after deadly clashes between armed groups controlling different areas of Tripoli killed at least eight people, according to the UN.
The clashes were sparked by the killing of an armed faction leader by a group aligned with Dbeibah’s government — the 444 Brigade which later fought a third group, the Radaa force that controls parts of eastern Tripoli and the city’s airport.
The fighting broke out also after Dbeibah announced a string of executive orders seeking to dismantle Radaa and dissolve other Tripoli-based armed groups but excluding the 444 Brigade.
The government and UN support mission in Libya have been pressing efforts to reach a permanent ceasefire since.
Last Saturday, a separate protest in Tripoli drew hundreds in support of Dbeibah.
Demonstrators condemned the armed groups and called for the reinstatement of Libya’s 1951 constitution, which was abolished by Qaddafi after his 1969 coup.
Israel strikes western Syria, despite talks
- Syrian state television said the strike targeted sites in the Jableh countryside south of Latakia
- The Israeli military said it struck weapon storage facilities containing coastal missiles
DAMASCUS: Israel on Friday struck western Syria, the Israeli military and Syrian state media said, in the first such attack on the country in nearly a month.
It came after Damascus announced earlier this month indirect talks with Israel to calm tensions, and the US called for a “non-aggression agreement” between the two countries, which are technically at war.
“A strike from Israeli occupation aircraft targeted sites close to the village of Zama in the Jableh countryside south of Latakia,” state television said.
The Israeli military shortly thereafter said it “struck weapon storage facilities containing coastal missiles that posed a threat to international and Israeli maritime freedom of navigation, in the Latakia area of Syria.”
“In addition, components of surface-to-air missiles were struck in the area of Latakia,” it said, adding that it would “continue to operate to maintain freedom of action in the region, in order to carry out its missions and will act to remove any threat to the State of Israel and its citizens.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights meanwhile reported that jets likely to be Israeli struck military sides on the outskirts of Tartus and Latakia.
Syria and Israel have technically been at war since 1948. Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 and has carried out hundreds of strikes and several incursions since the overthrow of Bashar Assad in December.
Israel says its strikes aim to stop advanced weapons reaching Syria’s new authorities, whom it considers jihadists.
UN condemns ‘armed individuals’ for looting medical supplies in Gaza
- The group “stormed the warehouses at a field hospital in Deir Al-Balah, looting large quantities of medical equipment,” said Dujarric
- The stolen aid had been brought into war-ravaged Gaza just a day earlier
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations condemned Friday a group of “armed individuals” for raiding warehouses in the Palestinian territory of Gaza and looting large amounts of medical supplies.
The group “stormed the warehouses at a field hospital in Deir Al-Balah, looting large quantities of medical equipment, supplies, medicines, nutritional supplements that was intended for malnourished children,” said Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
The stolen aid had been brought into war-ravaged Gaza just a day earlier, he said.
“As conditions on the ground further deteriorate and public order and safety breaks down, looting incidents continue to be reported,” he said.
But Dujarric highlighted the difference between Friday’s event and the looting two days earlier of a UN World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse by “starving” Palestinians, desperate for aid.
“This appeared to be much more organized and much different from the looting we’d seen... in the past days,” he said.
“This was an organized operation with armed men.”
Since the beginning of last week, Israel has begun to allow a trickle of aid into the Palestinian territory, after a total blockade imposed on March 2.
The UN has warned that the aid allowed through so far was “a drop in the ocean” of the towering needs in Gaza, after the blockade created dramatic shortages of food and medicine.
The UN humanitarian agency warned Friday that “100 percent of the population (are) at risk of famine.”
Gaza has been decimated by Israel’s punishing military offensive on the territory, which has killed at least 54,321 people, mostly civilians, according to health ministry figures the UN considers reliable.
It has also reduced much of the territory to rubble, destroying hospitals, schools, residential areas and basic road and sewage infrastructure.
Israel launched its offensive in response to an unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, also mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
On Thursday, “we and our humanitarian partners only managed to collect five truckloads of cargo from the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing,” Dujarric said.
“Another 60 trucks had to return to the crossing due to intense hostilities in the area.”
He rejected Israeli allegations that the UN was not collecting available aid.
“It was no longer safe to use that road,” which Israel’s military had asked aid organizations to use, he said, stressing that there are “a lot of armed gangs” operating there.
The five trucks that did make it through on Thursday were carrying medical supplies for the Deir Al-Balah field hospital.
And most of those supplies “were looted today, very sadly and tragically,” Dujarric said.
Syrian minister says lifting of economic sanctions offers hope for recovery
- Hind Kabawat: Govt to launch ‘temporary schools’ for the children of refugees returning to their home areas
DAMASCUS: The lifting of economic sanctions on the Syrian Arab Republic will allow the government to begin work on daunting tasks that include fighting corruption and bringing millions of refugees home, Hind Kabawat, the minister of social affairs and labor, told The Associated Press on Friday.
Kabawat is the only woman and the only Christian in the 23-member cabinet formed in March to steer the country during a transitional period after the ouster of former President Bashar Assad in December.
Her portfolio will be one of the most important as the country begins rebuilding after nearly 14 years of civil war.
She said moves by the US and the EU in the past week to at least temporarily lift most of the sanctions that had been imposed on Syria over the decades will allow that work to get started.
Before, she said, “we would talk, we would make plans, but nothing could happen on the ground because sanctions were holding everything up and restricting our work.”
With the lifting of sanctions, they can move to “implementation.”
One of the first programs the new government is planning to launch is “temporary schools” for the children of refugees and internally displaced people returning to their home areas.
Kabawat said that it will take time for the easing of sanctions to show effects on the ground, particularly since unwinding some of the financial restrictions will involve complicated bureaucracy.
“We are going step by step,” she said.
“We are not saying that anything is easy — we have many challenges — but we can’t be pessimistic. We need to be optimistic.”
The new government’s vision is “that we don’t want either food baskets or tents after five years,” Kabawat said, referring to the country’s dependence on humanitarian aid and many displacement camps.
That may be an ambitious target, given that 90 percent of the country’s population currently lives below the poverty line, according to the UN.
The civil war that began in 2011 also displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million people.
The UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, estimates that about half a million have returned to Syria since Assad was ousted.
But the dire economic situation and battered infrastructure have also dissuaded many refugees from coming back.
The widespread poverty also fed into a culture of public corruption that developed in the Assad era, including solicitation of bribes by public employees and shakedowns by security forces at checkpoints.
Syria’s new leaders have pledged to end corruption, but they face an uphill battle. Public employees make salaries far below the cost of living, and the new government has so far been unable to make good on a promise to hike public sector wages by 400 percent.
“How can I fight corruption if the monthly salary is $40 and that is not enough to buy food for 10 days?” Kabawat asked.
Syria’s new rulers, led by President Ahmad Al-Sharaa, have been under scrutiny by Western countries over the treatment of Syrian women and religious minorities.
In March, clashes between government security forces and pro-Assad armed groups spiraled into sectarian revenge attacks on members of the Alawite sect to which Assad belongs. Hundreds of civilians were killed.
The government formed a committee to investigate the attacks, which has not yet reported its findings.
Many also criticized the transitional government as giving only token representation to women and minorities.
Apart from Kabawat, the Cabinet includes only one member each from the Druze and Alawite sects and one Kurd.
“Everywhere I travel … the first and last question is, ‘What is the situation of the minorities?’” Kabawat said.
“I can understand the worries of the West about the minorities, but they should also be worried about Syrian men and women as a whole.”
She said the international community’s priority should be to help Syria build its economy and avoid the country falling into “chaos.”
Despite being the only woman in the Cabinet, Kabawat said “now there is a greater opportunity for women” than under Assad and that “today there is no committee being formed that does not have women in it.”
“Syrian women have suffered a lot in these 14 years and worked in all areas,” she said.
“All Syrian men and women need to have a role in rebuilding our institutions.”
She called for those wary of President Al-Sharaa to give him a chance.
The West has warmed to the new president — particularly after his recent high-profile meeting with US President Donald Trump.
