Foundation of Israel

One hundred years ago, when 67 words laid the foundation of Israel  

A letter that changed the Middle East Former British Foreign Secretary Arthur Belfort is not mentioned in the local school curriculum, but many Israeli and Palestinian students can.His Belfort Declaration, issued on November 2, 1917, is read in the parties of history and the important chapter is read in a completely different national narrative in Israel and Palestine.

The declaration can be seen as the beginning of the Arab-Israeli conflict.Arthur Belfort's arrival in Jerusalem in 1925 was enthusiastically received by the Jews. The statement of the then Foreign Minister Arthur Belfort is mentioned in a letter to Lord Walter Rothschild, a staunch supporter of Zionism. The goal of the Zionist movement was to establish a Jewish state on the Jews' own historical land from the Mediterranean to the east bank of the Jordan River. This area was called Palestine.

It said

"the British government is in favor of a Jewish state in Palestine."

At the same time, he said,

"the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities present there should not be discriminated against."

 The Palestinians saw this as a great deception, especially the promise of a separate state, which was to provide political and military support to the Arabs who ruled the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

The Belfort statue in which he is signing the Belfort Declaration

states that

"Britain will support his struggle for independence in most of the Ottoman Empire."

 The Arabs thought that this included Palestine, although it was not specifically mentioned.

Britain also committed a crime against the Palestinian people A teacher at a school in the West Bank city of Ramallah asked children while teaching a lesson.

So everyone in the class supported it by raising their hands.

A 15-year-old girl said the declaration was against the law because Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire and was not controlled by the British. The British took the Arabs as a minority even though they were 90% of the population.

Israeli children who read the Belfort Declaration in their high school years welcomed the declaration in a positive light.

Noga Yazukli, a nine-year-old resident of Belforia, a village in northern Israel, proudly reads the declaration in Hebrew.

His father says of the New Belfort Declaration that the Zionist movement received great hope and determination when it was issued. People saw that if the British government had issued such a declaration, it could one day become the homeland of the Jews, which in fact happened in 1948 when a new country called Israel came into being.

In the Palestinian territories, the Belfort Declaration is interpreted as a

betrayal of the Palestinians. The Jewish population in Palestine, including New York's grandfather and other Balfourites, was growing in Palestine in 1925. When Lord Belfort visited, he received a warm welcome.

At the time, the area was under British administration. The Belfort Declaration formally covers the UK's mandate on Palestine. In the first part of the mandate, Britain allowed large numbers of Jewish immigrants to enter, but with Arab opposition and escalating violence, Israelis remember how to escape violence and oppression, especially in the days of the Holocaust. Stopped

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem was inaugurated by Belfort, and Ruth Lipdoth, a professor at the university, has read the 67-word document.

Professor Ruth, an expert in international law, said the declaration was legally binding but the British government had difficulty fulfilling its promise.

When the Nazis came to power, the political situation was very bad and then England needed help in the form of friendship with the Arab countries. Then they had to limit the implementation of the declaration and that is unfortunate.

Professor Ruth left Germany in 1938, a year before the outbreak of World War II, and therefore has a personal interest in the Declaration.

"I am still very grateful for that. It was an important source of my right to return to Palestine, including me. '

 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the Balfour Declaration as a key milestone in his country's establishment.

According to the New Jewish man, the Balfour Declaration gave the Zionist movement great hope and great determination

when the British government invited him to London for the centenary celebrations of the Declaration. So amid the fading hopes of peace between Israel and Palestine, the decision has provoked the Palestinians and they have planned a protest.

Palestinians want Britain to apologize for the Balfour Declaration. Palestinian Education Minister Sabri Saddam says

"with the passage of time, he thinks the British are forgetting the lessons of history."

He said the Palestinians still wanted a state with Israel based on a self-made two-state solution to the conflict, which also had the support of the international community.

"The time has come for Palestine to be liberated and for the fulfillment of a long-held promise," he said.

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