'Arthur James Balfour will, no doubt, be praised effusively by supporters of Israel in the coming weeks for a brief document he signed 100 years ago.
As Britain’s foreign secretary in November 1917, Balfour declared his backing to the Zionist colonization project. Through his declaration, Britain became the imperial sponsor of a Jewish state – euphemistically called a “Jewish national home” – that would be established in Palestine by expelling its indigenous people en masse.
An assurance in that document about protecting Palestinian rights proved worthless. Balfour himself was quite happy to negate that assurance.
In 1919, he argued that Zionist aspirations were “of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.”
Rather than being marked “with pride,” as Theresa May, the current British prime minister, has promised, the centenary of the Balfour Declaration ought to be a time for sober reflection. One useful exercise would be to examine Balfour’s wider record of violence and racism.'
Read more: The racist worldview of Arthur Balfour
