The Balfour Declaration Centenary: 5 Months to Go

Here is the 3rd in my series of posts, appearing on the 2nd of each month, in the lead-up to the centenary of the Balfour Declaration on November 2. What follows is an extract from The Holy Land: The Moslem-Christian Case against Zionist Aggression, the official statement of the first Palestinian Arab delegation to visit Britain in 1921:

"This Declaration, when news of it first came during the war through the Turks, was utterly disbelieved; later, when it was found to be true, it fell like a thunderbolt from the blue on the Arab population of Palestine, who saw in it death to their political and economic existence. Besides, it was in direct contradiction to previous British declarations and to what they were led to believe was the object of the Allies in the war, namely, the assistance of weaker nations to freedom and self-determination.

"With these solemn pledges of Great Britain in their mind the Arabs of Palestine were stunned and horrified on reading two years later that another promise had been made by the British Government to the Zionists in the form of the Balfour Declaration. They felt they had been betrayed by the power which they had hitherto believed in and trusted.

"From every part of the country protests against this declaration were made: not only to the British Administrators in Palestine but also to the British and Allied Governments, to the Pope and the United States, and latterly to the League of Nations, and from that day to this Arabs have not ceased to protest on every occasion."