Palestine Wants Justice for UK Support of Balfour Declaration

Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki requested legal assistance on Monday from fellow member countries of the Arab League to help them move forward with a lawsuit against the British government for implementing a document known as the Balfour Declaration almost 100 years ago.

The historic document, which recommended the creation of a “national home for the Jewish people,” prompted the settlement of Palestinian land and eventual establishment of the Israeli state in 1948.

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“We call on the secretariat general of the Arab League to support us in preparing a legal file to raise against the British government for issuing the Balfour Declaration and thereafter implementing it as a mandatory authority,” he said during the the 27th Arab League Summit on Monday.

Meanwhile, during his speech, Maliki – who spoke on behalf of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas – criticized regional governments that have considered restoring relations with Israel “before the end of the Israeli occupation.”

“We warn Arab states of the concept of ‘regional cooperation and security,’ which is aimed at creating regional security cooperation between Arab countries and Israel and normalizing relations before the end of the Israeli occupation,” Maliki added.

Maliki went on to note that the Palestinian government supports the creation of an independent Palestinian state based on pre-1967 border resolutions. Israel annexed East Jerusalem following the 1967 conflict and considers all of Jerusalem its capital, a claim that has failed to win international recognition.

To date, Israel has refused to return to the 1967 borders and has been unwilling to discuss the issue of East Jerusalem.

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Over 500,000 Israelis are currently living in 120 illegal settlements built since 1967, including in Jerusale m—considered illegal by a range of international and regional bodies like the U.N, the EU, among others.

The news comes as the Israeli human rights watch group B'Tselem announced on Monday that Israel has destroyed more Palestinian households in the West bank in 2016 than it had every other year in the last decade.