109 Years Since the Balfour Declaration: A Renewed Colonial Crime and a Resistance That Endures Until Liberation and Return

Exclusive – Shehab

The second of November is a black day in the history of the Palestinian people, and in the history of all humanity. On this day in 1917, Britain’s then foreign secretary, Arthur James Balfour, issued his famous letter to the Zionist Lord Lionel Rothschild, pledging on behalf of his government to establish a “national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.”

That promise, summed up in history by the phrase “he gave who does not own to whom does not deserve,” formed the most dangerous turning point and the first practical step by the West to plant the “Israeli” occupation entity on the land of historic Palestine, populated by its indigenous people.

Today, Monday, as the 109th anniversary of this ominous promise arrives, Palestinians in the homeland and the diaspora do not mark this occasion merely to recall an archival milestone of the past, but read it in the mirror of the bloody present; the war of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people continues in the Gaza Strip, amid an escalation of systematic “Israeli” aggression in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem and settler terrorism, in an organic and practical extension of the very colonial policies that began more than a century ago.

From Balfour to genocide: an identical map of targets

The Balfour Declaration was not merely two lines in a diplomatic letter; it was the first political and legal cover for the Zionist movement and its colonial ambitions.

This promise was followed by an integrated course sponsored by Britain during its Mandate over Palestine (1920-1948), culminating in the League of Nations’ approval of the Mandate instrument in 1922 and the preparation of all conditions to facilitate Jewish immigration and the seizure of land, leading to the Nakba of 1948, which displaced more than 750,000 Palestinians and turned them into refugees in diaspora camps.

Successive rights and international reports affirm that what the Gaza Strip is experiencing today of systematic destruction, a starvation siege, and continuous forced displacement is only an advanced and bloody link in the chain of the colonial-settlement project that was launched under British sponsorship.

Between the ink in which the Balfour Declaration was written and the gunpowder and destruction the occupation pours today on the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Jerusalem, there is an extension of a single policy that always seeks to erase Palestinian existence and empty the land of its indigenous inhabitants in favor of the Zionist project.

Steadfastness to the pledge and a resistance with no retreat

Amid this painful anniversary, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) affirmed today that the Palestinian people will remain steadfast on their land and adhere to their rights and holy sites, continuing to defend them until liberation and return, stressing that the occupation’s crimes and colonial plans will not succeed in erasing national identity.

On the occasion of the 109th anniversary of the ominous Balfour Declaration, the movement said that this anniversary comes at a time when the occupation is escalating its aggression and war of genocide in the Gaza Strip, alongside dangerous displacement and Judaization projects in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, amid international silence and failure to put an end to this terrorism.

Hamas considered that the “Balfour Declaration” represents the greatest historical sin committed by the British government by granting “to those who do not own to those who do not deserve,” affirming that the same colonial mentality still governs the usurping entity and its government through policies of killing, siege and starvation.

The movement set out five demands and constants, including an affirmation that the occupation’s crimes do not fall under any statute of limitations, and the necessity of achieving national unity within a unified struggle strategy.

It stressed absolute adherence to the right of refugees to return, and called on the Arab and Islamic nation and the free people of the world to support the steadfastness of the Palestinian people, as well as demanding effective international action to stop the aggression and hold the occupation’s leaders accountable as war criminals before international courts.

In the context of marking this national anniversary, many Palestinian camps in the diaspora, specifically in Lebanon, witnessed a comprehensive strike today, Monday, amid student calls to extend it to the schools of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), in commemoration of the ongoing Nakba and continuous suffering the ominous promise left for successive Palestinian generations.

The 109th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration affirms that the Palestinian right is not erased by the passage of time, and that the successive generations waging battles and epic struggles today in Gaza, the West Bank, Jerusalem and every inch of historic Palestine prove that the roots of belonging are far deeper than all plots of genocide and displacement. As international institutions stand before a difficult moral and legal test to hold the occupation accountable and halt the effects of that colonial promise, the continuing Palestinian resistance remains the most steadfast path to restoring usurped national rights and achieving freedom and independence.