Arab American University held a lecture entitled “100 Years on Belfour”, in partnership with the Ministry of Information and presence of the Ministry Undersecretary Dr. Mahmoud Khalifa, Chairman of Arab Movement for Change in the 1948 Palestine Dr. Ahmed Tibi, Political Science lecturer at the University Prof. Dr. Ayman Yousef, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University Dr. Marwan Abu Al-Rob.
From the “100 Years on Belfour” Seminar
The seminar, moderated by Abdel Basset Khalaf from the Ministry of Information Office in Tubas, opened by Dean of the Faculty of Arts Dr. Abu Al-Rob welcoming the attendees. He stressed that the university has a cultural role besides the academic. Pointing to its important, a promise resulting in several disasters for Palestinian people and negatively affected their just cause.
For his part, Head of the Arab Movement for Change in the 1948 Palestine Dr. Ahmed Tibi, called the Balfour Declaration a colonial promise, where the majority of Palestinians were treated as non-Jewish groups in their homeland. He recommended, in his speech to Congress, to give the Palestinians their civil rights.
He wondered, 100 years from the Balfour Declaration, where are we and where is Britain in the Arab-Israeli conflict? Britain has not yet recognized the decision of Palestine to join the United Nations and it should have as a kind of apology for its promise, yet it celebrated its centennial with the Israel PM Netanyahu, celebrating this injustice.
Dr. Tibi pointed that the British public opinion is totally different from the government opinion. Leader of the British Labor Party refused to participate in the celebration. His party also stressed on the need to recognize the State of Palestine. He pointed in recent years there has been a positive development in British public opinion. 100 years after Balfour's promise, as Palestinians we must take judicial, diplomatic and popular action.
He said we stand before the Israeli government, most extreme government, which seek to set a number of racist laws the most dangerous is “National Law”, which refuses to use equality word in the law. As Arabs in the 1948 Palestine, especially the members of Knesset, we must reject adopting this law.
Undersecretary of the Ministry of Information Dr. Mahmoud Khalifa said the occupation should be expensive, silence has no place in our struggle, and movement is our renewed action through activities and the Palestinian people components. It’s a fact we should start with what the British government left since Balfour Declaration, Sykes Pico preparation before, then crimes and disasters that afflicted our people resulting from their occupation, and should be charged with pursuing the British judicially and diplomatically.
He added in light of the Arab preoccupation with the fires that have engulfed, we are witnessing international reverberations, treaties and alliances gone with the wind. The Third World War is now raging. Arab nation is singled out one by one and aiming to forget the Palestinian cause. Results of both World War I and II is establishing the Israeli entity on our lands, this was produced by Balfour Declaration and arranging international policy distributing geographical map to the strong. Sykes Pico was the birth of alliances. In the Arab world we need nations to be wiser in dealing with up-coming and what’s prepared for them.
Dr. Khalifa pointed that the British Mandate and the Balfour Declaration were catastrophic for the Palestinian people demographically, humanitarianly, health, educationally, economically and so on. This lead to prepare files by a Palestinian committee formed to present them to concerned authorities and prosecute Britain. This is the civil society responsibility as well as state institutions.
Political Science Lecturer at the University Dr. Ayman Yousef said the next Palestinian project should be investing in the Palestinian identity and in order to have liberated Palestine we must be patient. Stressing, the important of having diplomatic movement, invest in the boycott movements towards the occupying state, and strengthening our international relations.
