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Today marks the 103rd anniversary of the Balfour Declaration - 67 words that made Zionism an official objective of British foreign policy, with devastating effects for the Palestinian people. Since then, the history of Palestine has been entwined with the history of Britain.
Throughout the 1920s, 30s and 40s, Britain was the colonial power in Palestine, brutally suppressing Palestinians' legitimate demands for self-determination. This video gives an excellent explanation how this happened: https://twitter.com/Africa4Pal/status/1323208328907005953?s=20
In 1947-8, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began to be forcibly expelled from their homes during the Nakba and the state of Israel was created, Britain was the Mandatory Power - charged with protecting the collective rights of the Palestinian people.
Britain failed to protect those rights - and ever since, Palestinians have faced unceasing settler colonialism, dispossession, apartheid, exile and siege. This history, and Britain's role in it, have purposely been made invisible.
This erasure of the Palestinian people continues as an active policy today.
"The dream to have us disappear has become, especially since the summer of 2018, a more plausible reality - from Labour's official position to annex the remainder of Palestine"
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/05/why-nakba-day-matters
"The dream to have us disappear has become, especially since the summer of 2018, a more plausible reality - from Labour's official position to annex the remainder of Palestine"
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/05/why-nakba-day-matters
Many of us in the labour movement in Britain understand that this generates a special responsibility on us to ensure that the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to return to their homes, to the sovereignty of their land, to justice and self-determination, are realised.
Recently, we have felt the force of the entire colonial machine as it suppresses those who stand with the dispossessed & the invisible. We must renew our commitment to standing in unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian people - until they live in freedom, peace and dignity.
