THE 1917 BALFOUR DECLARATION
The Beginning of the Zionist Genocide against Palestinians
Grand Corruption and Plunder
as Crimes against Humanity
It was from Cape Town Castle that
colonialism and imperialism and
exploitation went forth to take over and
control Asia and Africa. The impact
on world history over the past 400 years has been
immense. Just 70 years ago the British still boasted that
the British Empire owned one fifth of the globe on which
the sun would never set.
The British Empire is now reduced to a few “Treasure
Islands” in the Caribbean that launder the proceeds of
plunder and organised crime to fund the banking system
in London. This year, 2017, marks the centenary of
the Balfour Declaration and the 50th anniversary of the
Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine’s ‘West Bank’.
South Africa and Israel’s Land Grab (with
support of the British government)
The notorious Land Act of 1913 deliberately
impoverished the indigenous people of South Africa by
forcing them into unskilled labour on gold mines and
farms, and of which Sol Plaatjie noted:
“the South African native found himself, not actually a
slave, but a pariah in the land of his birth.”
Four years later, the Balfour Declaration was a letter
addressed to Lord Walter Rothschild, which declared:
“His Majesty’s Government views with favour the
establishment in Palestine of a national home for the
Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours
to facilitate the achievement of this
objective, it being clearly understood
that nothing shall be done which may
prejudice the civil and religious rights
of existing non-Jewish communities in
Palestine...”
Muslim and Christian Palestinians constituted 95% of
the population, and understandably and immediately
objected to the British theft and give-away of their country
to European Jewish settlers. Jewish Palestinians then
numbered thirty thousand, many of whom also objected
and predicted an upsurge in anti-Semitism. When antiZionist riots erupted, Lord Arthur Balfour declared:
“In Palestine we do not propose to go through the
form of consulting the present inhabitants. The four
great powers are committed to Zionism and Zionism,
be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in ageold tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far
profounder import than the desires and prejudices of
the seven hundred thousand Arabs who now inhabit
that ancient land.”
In reality, the Declaration had nothing to do with sudden
British concerns for Jewish welfare. Oil had been
discovered in 1908 in the Middle East, which Winston
Churchill and other British imperialists were determined
to control following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
Just as the 1899-1902 Anglo-Boer (or South African)
war and the Land Act were about British control of
South African gold, so the Balfour Declaration was
nothing less than a British land grab to seize control of
the Middle East and that newly discovered oil, and to
secure the Suez Canal as the passage to India.
“How does Israel get away with it? In a decidedly
post-colonial age, how is Israel able to sustain
a half century occupation of the Palestinians, a
people it violently displaced in 1948, in the face of
almost unanimous international opposition? Why,
indeed, does the international community tolerate
an unnecessary conflict that not only obstructs
efforts to bring some stability to the wider Middle
East, a pretty important geopolitical region in
which the United States and Europe are fighting a
number of wars, but one that severely disrupts the
international system as a whole?”
Since Israel’s formation in 1948 and more boldly since
9/11, it has specialised in serving as a surrogate for
the US, not just in the Middle East but throughout the
world. It is by far the largest recipient of US military
and financial assistance, and is a de facto member of
the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
International Solidarity – the Key to
liberating Apartheid South Africa and
stopping Israel’s Colonial Genocide of
Palestinians
At the time of Sharpeville in 1960, Robert Sobukwe
taught us that we are all one human race. South
Africa was liberated from apartheid three decades
later because of solidarity from the international
community with the struggle against racism and
oppression through boycotts, divestment and
sanctions, and other non-violent strategies.
Just as apartheid in South Africa was a discredited
heresy within Christianity, so Zionism is a discredited
heresy within Judaism. More and more Jews around
the world object to what is done in the name of religion
by the Israeli government.
In contradiction of the assurances of the Balfour
Declaration, more than fifty humiliating laws within
“Israel proper” discriminate against Palestinian
Israelis on the basis of citizenship, language and
land in what in South Africa would have been termed
“petty apartheid.” Parallel to the Group Areas Act in
apartheid South Africa, ninety-three percent of the
land in Israel is now reserved for Jewish occupation
only.
Beyond the “Green Line,” the West Bank is a “grand
apartheid” bantustan with even less autonomy than
the bantustans in South Africa had – where there
was no apartheid wall, no apartheid roads, and the
pass laws were primitive compared with the Israeli
ID system.
That Israel is an apartheid state in terms of international
law has been thoroughly and systematically
documented by the Human Sciences Research
Council’s report in 2009, and by the Russell Tribunal
on Palestine which met at the District Six Museum in
2011.
Palestinians had nothing to do with the Nazi holocaust.
Yet in six months of 1947 and 1948, over 700,000
Palestinians (nearly 40% of the native population)
were expelled from their land and their villages
were demolished to make way for a huge influx of
European Jewish settlers. In his recent book entitled
War Against The People, Israeli peace activist Jeff
Halper opens with the question:
Given its experience in controlling Palestinians under
occupation, Israel uses the occupied territories as
a giant laboratory to develop and test new ideas,
technology, tactics and weaponry for war and state
repression in what is brazenly described as “turning
Palestinian blood into money.”
As an extension of that war business, Israeli citizens
are disproportionately involved in looting African
resources. Israelis provide the security to keep the
DRC’s dictator Joseph Kabila in power and, in return,
plunder the DRC’s diamond, cobalt, coltan, copper,
gold and other natural resources.
The same is true of President Dos Santos in Angola and
President Mugabe in Zimbabwe. The consequences
for South Africa include that we host more refugees
than any other country in the world. Those refugees
would far rather be home in Zimbabwe or the DRC
or Angola.
It is shameful that that our government pays lipservice to President Nelson Mandela’s statement
that South Africa will only be truly free when Palestine
is free, and has forgotten the support given to our
liberation by the international community during the
1970s and 1980s.
As apartheid illustrated and likewise today’s South
Africa, plunder sucks the financial lifeblood out of
countries and impoverishes its people. Not only has
promotion of human rights been abandoned as South
Africa’s foreign policy priority, but we fail dismally to
enforce international obligations on human rights and
corruption, including Palestine.
‘ The number of Palestinian children arrested by Israeli forces has more than doubled since October 2015 .
Interviews with children who have been detained, video footage, and reports from lawyers reveal that Israeli
security forces are using unnecessary force in arresting and detaining children, in some cases beating them,
and holding them in unsafe and abusive conditions.’ - Human Rights Watch
Accordingly, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in
2017 calls upon our government to lead diplomatically
at the United Nations and elsewhere in ending the
illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine, plus Israeli
involvements in Africa where under international law
“grand corruption” and deliberate impoverishment of
people constitute crimes against humanity.
A timeline of International Pressure to end
Apartheid in South Africa
1946: India’s complaint at the United Nations
1960: Sharpeville massacre, and capital flight
and international outcry
1961: “Withdrawal”/expulsion from the
Commonwealth
1961: Expulsion from FIFA
1962: United Nations Committee Against
Apartheid formed
1970: Expulsion from the Olympic Games
1976: Soweto uprising, and capital flight and
international outcry
1977: United Nations mandatory arms
embargo against South Africa
1985: State of Emergency, and launch of the
international banking sanctions campaign
1986: US Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act
endorsing sanctions and disinvestment
1990: End of SA’s State of Emergency,
beginning of constitutional negotiations for
democracy
Why not International Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions
(BDS) against Israel?
IApartheid Israel is much more oppressive and brutal
towards Palestinians than Apartheid South Africa
was towards black people. In fact, Israel’s continued
colonial occupation and repressive actions amount to
an incremental genocide of the Palestinian people.
An estimated 6-million Palestinians live in exile in
several countries all over the world. 2.7-million live
in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and 1.7-million
live in the World’s biggest open air prison of Gaza.
Over 510,000 Palestinians have been murdered by
the Israeli regime since 1948.
Why are the World’s major powers (Britain, the US,
France, Russia and China) not acting against Israel
to end its colonial and genocidal actions? Why are
the South African and other governments that are
rooted in anti-colonial struggles now colluding with
the Israeli genocide?
If BDS was good for Apartheid South Africa then it is
even more so for Apartheid Israel.
We call on all freedom loving people around
the world to pressurise their governments to
adopt laws to enforce BDS against Israel now.
STOP THE GENOCIDE! LIBERATE PALESTINE NOW!
SUPPORT BDS!