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## Nachricht <6hCrQsuTg2B@forum.nadeshda.gun.de> vom 04.11.97 20:32 weitergeleitet
## Ursprung : /A R C H I V  1
## Ersteller: i.musa@NADESHDA.gun.de (Izzeddin Musa)


               *80 years to the Balfour Declaration*

   Rt Hon Tony Blair MP
   Prime Minister
   10, Downing Street
   London W1

   ON Sunday, the  Arab World will commemorate in  sadness and  pain
   the 80th aniversary of the Balfour Declaration issued on November
   2, 1917,  a policy which resulted, in 1948,  in the dispossession
   and dispersion of the  Palestinian people.  Different historians,
   in an attempt to explain the  political environment  in which the
   Balfour Declaration was formulated, resort to severeal factors:
     i)    The  religious upbringing of  Lord Balfour  and a narrow,
           dogmatic and  - one is attempted to add -  fundamentalist
           reading of the Old Testament
     ii)   An attempt to please the Britisch  Jewish community  who,
           though not enthusiastically  pro-Zionist then,  preferred
           to see East European Jewish emmigrants channeled to Pales-
           tine rather to the UK
     iii)  A feeling of gratitude to Chaim Weizman for his invention
           of an explosive that proved useful during World War I
     iv)   A conviction that a pro-Zionist commitment would help mo-
           bilize the American-Jewish lobby in favor of the US join-
           ing the allies in the war against Germany
     v)    An evaluation that Zionism could divert Jewish fervor and
           energies away from revolution in Russia towards Palestine
           since the destabilization of the czarist regime would de-
           prive the allies of their second front against Germany
     vi)   A belief that a friendly entity close to the  Suez Canal,
           a major artery in international navigation mainly  toward
           the  Indian  Subcontinent,  would  be  a major  strategic
           achievement
     vii)  A willingness to break the Arab World's geographic contin-
           uityat the point of intersection of the Asian and African
           continents  preemting  thus the  possible  emergence of a
           United Arab State.

   Prime Minister, I write to you today on behalf of "the non-Jewish
   communities"  in Palestine,  Muslims and  Christians  alike, whom
   Lord Balfour did not see fit to consult and whose lives have been
   totally disrupted since that date.  Prime Minister,  I personally
   believe that a Palestinian State beside Israel, in the  West Bank
   and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its  capital is  not only a
   Palestinian right, but a British ethical duty and a Jewish-Israeli
   moral obligation.

   Prime Minister, we, the Palestinian people, have a dream. A dream
   of a Blair or a Cook  Declaration.  A Declaration  that takes the
   lead in spelling out sympathy for palestinian sufferings and sup-
   port for palestinian aspirations.

   I know, Prime Minister, that some cynics might say that  Britain,
   in this fin de si�cle, is not what it used to  be at the  turn of
   the century but I am sure that Britain public opinion will  "view
   with favor"  that  Britain again  "punches above its weight."  Mr
   Prime Minister,  I could have  invoked a variety of geo-political
   considerations, but I believe that the ethical dimension,  on its
   own, ought to be sufficiently convoncing.

   Please accept, Prime Minister, the expression of my  highest con-
   sideration.


   Afif Safieh
   Palestinian General Delegate to the UK
   Director of the Office of Representation
   of the PLO on the Holy See

   THE JERUSALEM TIMES, October 31, 1997

   Wachtberg, November 4, 1997       I. Musa / Forum for Palestine
                               *****