November 14, 2023 • 35 mins
Shereen discusses the historical importance of the Balfour Declaration and how it forever changed the landscape of the Middle East.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Calls media.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hello everyone, it's me James, and I am joining you
today for another and long series of the little recordings
where I ask you to give us your money. Once again,
I am asking you to support the mutual aid work
being done at the border. I'm recording this in November,
and this week we have terrible weather forecasts that will
(00:23):
make conditions in Harcumba extremely dangerous for people who are
detained out there by the Department of Homeland Security. It
will mean that it's no exaggeration to say that people's
lives will be at risk, and that the important mutual
aid work that's already been done will only become more
important as we get rain, we get snow, and we
get cold temperatures, and people continue to be detained without shelter, food, water,
(00:46):
or adequate clothing. If you would like to support those efforts,
you can find the way to do so at link
tree slash Border Kindness. There's a dot before the ee,
so it's l I NKT dot ee slash Border Kindness.
I'll supposed to link on my Twitter if you'd like
to find it there.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Thank you, Hello, everybody, Welcome to It could happen here.
This is sharene. I'm back to talk about Palestine because
it's important, But when it comes to the history of
the creation of Israel and the subsequent ethnic cleansing and
mass expulsion of the Palestinian people, I feel like there's
(01:27):
a part of history that often gets overlooked. People usually
say Israel was created in nineteen forty eight, but the
intent to create it actually started decades before that. We're
going to be talking about the Balfour Declaration, which resulted
in a significant upheaval in the lives of Palestinians and
was issued over a century ago on November two, nineteen seventeen.
(01:50):
The declaration turned the Zionist aim of establishing a Jewish
state in Palestine into a reality. The pledge is generally
viewed as one of the main catalysts of the Nekba,
the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in nineteen forty eight, and
the conflict that ensued with the Zigon Estate of Israel.
The Balfour Declaration is regarded as one of the most
controversial and contested documents in the modern history of the
(02:13):
Arab world. So what is it the Balfour Declaration? It
means or is translated to Balfour's Promise in Arabic. It
was a public pledge by Britain in nineteen seventeen, declaring
its aim to quote establish a national home for the
Jewish people in Palestine. The declaration came in the form
of a letter from Britain's then Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour,
(02:35):
addressed to Lionel Walter Rothschild, a figurehead of the British
Jewish community at the time. The declaration was made during
World War One, which was just a reminder from nineteen
fourteen to nineteen eighteen, and this declaration was included in
the terms of the British mandate for Palestine after the
dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. So on November two, nineteen seventeen,
(02:58):
the Balfour Declaration became came the basis for the movement
to create a Jewish state in Palestine. A week later,
the declaration was published in the Times of London for
all the public to see. The content of the letter
is rather short, so I'm just going to read some
of it right now. It goes, Dear Lord Rothschild, I
(03:18):
have much pleasure in conveying to you on behalf of
his Majesty's government the following Declaration of Sympathy with the
Jewish Zionist Aspirations, which has been submitted to and approved
by the Cabinet. His Majesty's Government view with favor the
establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,
and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement
(03:40):
of this object. Keep in mind, at this time the
British had no control over Palestine. It was still under
the Ottoman Empire, but in this letter Britain was essentially
preparing to take it over in the very near future.
I also want to include that at this time Jewish
people only made up six percent of the Palestinian population.
I'm going to play audio from a video posted by
(04:01):
former guests of the show The Amazing sim Kern, where
they break down the last part of the declaration. Sim
is referencing in this audio Rashid Khalidi's book The One
Hundred Years War on Palestine, A History of Settler Colonialism
and Resistance nineteen seventeen to twenty seventeen.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
It being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which
may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non
Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights in political status
enjoyed by Jews in any other country. That last bit
sounds like, all right, well, he's saying we were not
going to tread on the civil and religious rights of Palestinians.
That's pretty good, right. But in the One hundred Years
(04:38):
War on Palestine, the book by Rashid Khalidi that I
am encouraging you all to keep reading along with me
this week, Khalidi does a great job breaking down the
rhetoric of this declaration and why it was actually a
declaration of war upon the Palestinian people. Yes, they were
promised civil and religious rights, but they were not granted
political or national rights. And this meant that for the
(05:00):
next fifteen years, as people in Palestine tried to resist
the establishment of a zion Est state within their country,
the takeover of all their land by Zionist groups, they
were unable to find any audience in the halls of
power because Balfour had declared them to not have these
rights and to not really be people. They weren't even
referred to as Arabs or Palestinians in.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
The declaration, just non Jewish.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Ninety four percent of the people of this land had
just been written out of existence as far as the
Western Powers were concerned. Kaleidi describes how between nineteen seventeen
and nineteen thirty six, almost all of the organized Palestinian
resistance to Zionism was peaceful and legalistic. They would form
political committees, but the British said, you're not allowed to
have political activity and shut those down harshly. They would
(05:47):
send delegations to the League of Nations, to other countries
to try to get to support to Britain, but they
would not even be seen in the halls of power.
They would not even get audiences because they were told basically,
as Palestinians, you have no rights, are not allowed to
have nationalistic interests.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
As I mentioned, the declaration was included in the terms
of the British Mandate for Palestine. The so called mandate
system set up by the Allied powers was a thinly
veiled form of colonialism and occupation. In retrospect, of course,
it's not a very thin veil at all. The mandate
system transferred rule from the territories that were previously controlled
(06:24):
by the powers defeated in the War Germany, Austria, Hungary,
the Ottoman Empire in Bulgaria to those who were victorious
in the war. The declared aim of the mandate system
was to allow the winners of the war to administer
the newly emerging states until they could become independent. The
case of Palestine, however, was unique. Unlike the rest of
(06:46):
the post war mandates, the main goal of the British
Mandate there was to create the conditions for the establishment
of a Jewish national home, even though Jews, again at
the time, constituted only six percent of the population. Upon
the start of the mandate, the British began to facilitate
the immigration of European Jews to Palestine. Between nineteen twenty
(07:06):
two and nineteen thirty five, the Jewish population rose to
nearly twenty seven percent of the total population. And even
though the Balfour Declaration included the caveat that quote nothing
shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious
rights of the existing non Jewish communities in Palestine, the
British Mandate was set up in a way to equip
(07:26):
Jews with the tools to establish self rule at the
expense of the Palestinian Arabs. Understandably enough, the document is
seen as controversial for several reasons. First, it was, in
the words of the late Palestinian American academic Edward Zaid,
quote made by European power about a non European territory
(07:47):
in a flat disregard of both the presence and wishes
of the native majority resident in that territory. In essence,
the Balfour Declaration promised Jews a land where the natives
made up more than ninety percent of the population. Second,
the declaration was one of three conflicting wartime promises made
by the British. Surprise surprise, when the declaration was released,
(08:11):
Britain had already promised the Arab's independence from the Ottoman
Empire in the nineteen fifteen Hussain McMahon Correspondents. However, the
British also promised the French and a separate treaty known
as the nineteen sixteen psychs Pico Agreement, that the majority
of Palestine would be under international administration while the rest
of the region would be split between the two colonial
(08:31):
powers after the war. This Hussain McMahon correspondence was a
series of letters exchanged in nineteen fifteen to nineteen sixteen
during World War One between Hussain ibn Ai, who was
the Emir of Mecca, and Sir Henry McMahon, the British
High Commissioner in Egypt. In general terms, the correspondence effectively
traded British support of an independent Arab state for the
(08:53):
Arab assistance in opposing the Ottoman Empire. However, the correspondence
was later contradicted by two things, the incompatible terms of
the sex Pico Agreement, which was secretly concluded between Britain
and France in May nineteen sixteen, and Britain's Balfour Declaration
in nineteen seventeen. The Declaration, however, meant that Palestine would
(09:13):
come under British occupation, that the Palestinian Arabs who lived
there would not gain independence. Third, the declaration introduced a
notion that was reportedly unprecedented in international law, that of
a quote national home. The use of the vague term
national home for the Jewish people as opposed to state
(09:34):
left the meaning open to interpretation. Earlier drafts of the
document used the phrase quote the reconstitution of Palestine as
a Jewish state, but that was later changed. However, in
a meeting with Zionist leader Heim Wizman, in nineteen twenty two,
Arthur Balfour and then Prime Minister David Lloyd George reportedly
(09:54):
said that the Balfour Declaration was quote always meant to
be an eventual Jewish state. Okay, let's take our first
break here because I have to. Okay, bye, and we're back.
(10:17):
So we're talking about the Balfour Declaration. But who exactly
is Arthur Balfour. Sim Kern in that same video that
I played earlier explains that he can be seen as
the person most responsible for violence in the Middle East
for the past century because when he wrote his declaration
in nineteen seventeen, he effectively wrote Palestinian rights out of
(10:37):
existence and surprising no one, Arthur Balfour was a terrible guy.
He was a white supremacist, a racist, and an anti Semite.
The Balfour Declaration is a statement that can fit into
two tweets. As we mentioned, Arthur Balfour, the British Foreign
Secretary at the time, announced that the British government would
support establishing a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine,
(11:01):
and more than one hundred years later, those written words
continued to define the dynamic between Israelis and Palestinians. In
twenty seventeen, marking one hundred years since the declaration, little
bitch Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin and Yahoo went to London
to commemorate the centennial occasion with Theresa May. I hope
you know by now, though, that the declaration is really
(11:23):
nothing worth celebrating. And though he may be most known
for aiding the Zionist cause in nineteen seventeen, it's crucial
to remember that Arthur Balfour was a white supremacist. He
made that much clear in his own words. In nineteen
o six, the British House of Commons was engaged in
a debate about the native blacks in South Africa. Nearly
(11:44):
all the members of Parliament agreed that the disenfranchisement of
the blacks was evil, but not Balfour, who almost alone
argued against it. When talking about the black people in
South Africa, he said, we have to face the facts.
Men are not born equal. The white in the black
races are not born with equal capacities. They are born
(12:06):
with different capacities which education cannot and will not change.
But Balfour's troubling views were not limited to Africa. In fact,
despite his now iconic support for Zionism that celebrated by
Zionists everywhere, he was not exactly a friend to the Jews.
In the late nineteenth century, Hagram's targeting Jews in the
Pale of Settlement had led to waves of Jewish flight
(12:30):
westward to England and the United States. Little insert here
that the Pale of Settlement was a western region of
the Russian Empire with varying borders that existed from seventeen
ninety one to nineteen seventeen, in which permanent residency by
Jews was allowed, and beyond which Jewish residency permanent or temporary,
was mostly forbidden. So created by imperial decree, the Jewish
(12:53):
Pale of Settlement was that part of the Russian Empire
within which Russia's Jewish population was required to live and
work for more than one hundred thirty years between the
late eighteenth and the early twentieth century. Although it was
initially intended to forestall commerce between Jews and the general
population of Russia, the restrictions imposed by the Pale fostered
(13:13):
the development of a distinctive religious and ethnic culture in
an area covering roughly three hundred and eighty six thousand
square miles or one million square kilometers between the Baltic
and Black Seas. The word pale as used in this sense,
comes from the Latin plus or stake, one that might
be used to indicate a boundary. A pale is thus
(13:35):
a district separated from the surrounding country. It may be
defined by physical boundaries, or it may be distinguished by
a different administrative or legal system. The Jewish Pale of
Settlement was both a defined area within the Russian Empire
and a legal entity regulated by laws that did not
apply to the Russian Empire as a whole. So back
(13:56):
to the main narrative. The targeting of Jews in the
Pale of Settlement led to immigration of many Jews to
the West, to England and the US. This influx of
refugees led to an increase in British anti immigrant racism
and outright anti semitism, themes not unfamiliar to US today.
Support for political action against immigrants grew as the English
(14:18):
public demanded immigration control to keep certain immigrants, particularly Jews,
out of the country. So this scared and xenophobic public
found a sympathetic ear in Balfour in nineteen o five,
while serving as Prime Minister, Balfour presided over the passage
of the Aliens Act. This legislation put the first restrictions
(14:39):
on immigration into Great Britain, and it was primarily aimed
at restricting Jewish immigration. According to historians, Balfour had personally
delivered passionate speeches about the imperative to restrict the waves
of Jews fleeing the Russian Empire from entering Britain. So
maybe it's not as astonishing as you would think that Balfour,
(15:00):
whose support of the Zionist cause has made him a
hero among Zionists, would have implemented anti Jewish laws. But
the truth is his support of Zionism stemmed from the
exact same source as his desire to limit Jewish immigration
to Britain. Both of these things can be traced back
to his white supremacist beliefs. Balfour lived in an area
(15:21):
of stirring nationalism highly defined by ethno religious identity. Because
of these sentiments, the early twentieth century was a time
when seemingly liberal Western nations struggled with the challenge of
incorporating Jewish citizens. Balfour wanted to keep the UK as
a white Christian ethno state. What the Zionists provided Balfour
(15:42):
with was a solution to the challenges Jewish citizens posed
to his ethno nationalist vision, a solution that didn't force
him to reckon with them. Instead of insisting that societies
except all citizens as equals, regardless of racial or religious background,
the Zionist move movement offered a different answer separation. Balfour
(16:04):
saw in Zionism not just a blessing for Jews, but
for the West as well. In nineteen nineteen, he wrote
the introduction to Nahem Sokolow's History of Zionism. In this introduction,
Balfour wrote that the Zionist movement would quote mitigate the
age long miseries created for Western civilization by the presence
in its midst of a body which it too long
(16:26):
regarded as alien and even hostile, but which it was
equally unable to expel or to absorb. By both giving
Jews a place to go and a place to leave,
Zionism seemingly solved two problems at once in Balfour's mind.
In other words, his support of Zionism was motivated by
(16:46):
his desire to protect Britain from the negative effects or
the miseries, as he said, of having Jews in its population.
Rather than protecting the rights of one of its minorities,
Britain could simply export them, or at las least not
import anymore. This is one of the many reasons Zionism
itself is anti Semitic. We can even fast forward to
(17:09):
now and see how Zionists are telling anti Zionist Jewish
people that they're no longer Jewish for supporting Palestine. That
belief and statement in itself is extremely anti Semitic. Criticizing
Israel on the Israeli government, however, is not but putting
that aside. We can see that from the very beginning,
even in its origin, Zionists associated and allied themselves with
(17:32):
the worst kinds of people, like people who believed that
Jewish people are quote an alien and hostile body among them.
Needless to say, Balfour's view of Zionism is steeped in
the same kind of white supremacy as Balfour's view of
South Africa's blacks. But his support of the Zionist dream
had another problem. Rather than solving the problem of how
(17:54):
to handle a minority living in a white majority country,
the Balfour declaration just shifted the say problem into a
different geography. The tension between ethno nationalism and equality is
definitely and equally present today between the Jordan River and
the Mediterranean Sea, where the Israeli state rules over the
fate of millions of Palestinians who either have no right
(18:16):
to vote, are treated as second class citizens, or our
refugees denied repatriation. Today it is Israel that views Palestinians
as demographic threats and sees the quote presence in its
midst of a body which is too long regarded as
alien and even hostile, by which it was equally unable
to expel or to absorb. Let's take our second break
(18:38):
here again, because I have to so see you later
and we are back. So that Balfour's legacy of supremacy
(18:58):
persists as much as British support for Israel does. Is
no accident. We have arrived at this point today because
the white supremacist attitudes of Balfour informed policy lending imperial
right to a project in pursuit of national self determination
for Jews by trampling on the rights of native non Jews. Remarkably,
(19:21):
Balfour was unabashedly aware of the hypocrisy in his stance.
In nineteen nineteen, he wrote a letter that said this
to the British Prime Minister. The weak point of our position,
of course, is that in the case of Palestine, we
deliberately and rightly declined to accept the principle of self determination.
We do not propose even to go through the form
(19:42):
of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country,
the seven hundred thousand Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.
Those are his words and a letter that he wrote
to the British Prime Minister. So there's no misconstruing that
there those seven hundred thousand airs. Arabs, of course, made
up approximately ninety percent of the population of Palestine. Again
(20:06):
bears repeating that Jewish people, before this declaration was implemented,
made up only six percent of the population. And therein
lies the fundamental problem that continues through this day, more
than one hundred years later. Palestinians are denied the right
to have rights because from the outset their views, their
human rights and by extension, their very humanity, were consistently
(20:29):
seen as inferior to those of others. That was clear
in Balfour's perspective and the British Mandate's policy, and it
persists in one form or another in many, if not most,
of the policies of the Zionist State of Israel through
this day. In modern times, as much as in nineteen seventeen,
the battle between ethno nationalism and equality has arisen to
(20:52):
the foreground. We saw this in Donald Trump's rise in
America and in Theresa May's brexited Britain. Other than resolving
this tension, Balfour's support for Zionism merely exported it to Palestine,
and resisting the legacy of Balfour's racism is absolutely necessary
if there is ever to be peace in Palestine and
(21:14):
beyond a little bit more history here about why this
declaration was issued. The question of why has been a
subject of debate for historians for decades, with historians using
different sources to suggest various explanations. Some argue that many
in the British government at the time or Zionists themselves.
Others say the declaration was issued out of an anti
(21:36):
Semitic reasoning that giving Palestine to the Jews would be
a solution to the quote unquote Jewish problem in mainstream academia. However,
there are a set of reasons over which there is
a general consensus. One, control over Palestine was a strategic
imperial interest to keep Egypt and the Suez Canal within
(21:57):
Britain's sphere of influence. Two, Britain had to side with
Zionists to rally support among the Jews in the United
States and Russia, hoping they could encourage their governments to
stay in the war until victory. Three, there was intense
Zionist lobbying and strong connections between the Zionist community in
Britain and the British government, as well as some of
(22:18):
the officials in the government being Zionists themselves. Four, Jews
were being persecuted in Europe, and the British government was
sympathetic to their suffering. I think that last point is
usually used as a validation to white Israel exists today,
but feeling sorry for a people and giving them someone
else's land is really not a solution in my opinion.
(22:41):
Of course, the Balfour Declaration was also not received well
by Palestinians and Arabs. In nineteen nineteen, then US President
Woodrow Wilson appointed a commission to look into public opinion
on the mandatory system in Syria and Palestine. The investigation
was known as the King Krane Commission. It found that
the majority of Palestinians expressed a strong opposition to Zionism,
(23:05):
leading the conductors of the commission to advise a modification
of the mandate's goal. The late Anni Abbe Alhadi, a
Palestinian political figure, condemned the Balfour Declaration in his memoirs,
saying it was made by an English foreigner who had
no claim to Palestine, to a foreign jew who had
no right to it. However, it's very important to mention
(23:26):
here that the other vital important source for insight into
Palestinian opinion on the declaration at the time, AKA the Press,
was closed down by the Ottomans at the start of
the war in nineteen fourteen and only began to reappear
in nineteen nineteen, but it was under British military censorship
in November nineteen nineteen when the Elisti la la Ladibi,
(23:48):
the Arab independence newspaper based in Damascus, was reopened. One
article had a response to a public speech given by
Herbert Samuel, a Jewish cabinet minister in London, on the
second anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. The article said quote
our country is Arab, Palestine is Arab, and Palestine must
remain Arab. In nineteen twenty, the Third Palestinian Congress and
(24:12):
Haifa decried the British government's plans to support the Zionist
project and rejected the declaration as a violation of international
law and the rights of the indigenous population. I'm going
to pull audio from Sim's video here. Again, they kind
of summarize in a really good way what happened in
the years leading up to the Nekba. So here is Sim.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
And even still until nineteen thirty six, Palestinians are trying
to peacefully, legalistically resist decolonization, which, unfortunately history teaches us
doesn't work that great usually. However, inspired by the examples
of Iraq and Syria, which had managed to overthrow their
colonizers starting with a general strike, Palestinians organize a strike
(24:56):
in nineteen thirty six. Again, this starts out as just
a peaceful strike, but it is brutally repressed by the
British overlords. We're like, no, you're not allowed to strike.
You are our captive wage slavery labor force.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
You have to go do your work.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
Khalidi shows how Britain was also very strategically sowing internal
divisions within the Palestinian leadership, turning people certain to their
side by bribing them to work against one another. And
so the strike fell apart in nineteen thirty six. But
then only then in nineteen thirty seven did.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
An armed revolt breakout.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Much is made by Zionists about this Arab revolt and
how this was justification for the Knuckba, which would ultimately
kill fifteen thousand Palestinians and displace hundreds of thousands more.
But this was no religious massacre, and that's reflected in
the casualties. Yes, several hundred Jews died during the revolt,
but it took one hundred thousand British troops to suppress
the revolt, and the fighting was mostly between the Arabs
(25:50):
and the British. And it's estimated that between fourteen and
seventeen percent of the adult male Arab population was killed, wounded, imprisoned,
or exiled. So the population of Palestinians was absolutely devastated
by this revolt.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
By the end of it.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
What struck me a lot reading the conclusion of this
chapter was, you know, the Western media, which is so Islamophobic,
portrays Palestinians as like inherently violent and bloodthirsty and anti Semitic,
But that just isn't reflected in this history at all.
In fact, as Khaledi mentioned, several scholars argue that, you know,
the Palestinians really should have organized an armed revolt earlier.
It was too late by the time they did. But
(26:24):
they had spent fifteen years since the Balfour Declaration trying
peacefully and legalistically to earn their rights, and that was
ultimately a dead end. But Palestinians really clearly did not
want to fight a war. It wasn't until they'd exhausted
every single other option to them. They tried legal routes,
they tried organizing, they tried a strike. You know, they
had done everything they could. And this was a population
(26:47):
that had been stripped of huge amounts of its land,
that was destitute, that was impoverished, that was starving, that
was shut out from any economic opportunity in the land
they had lived on for millennia.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
They were far.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
They didn't want to wage a war. They wanted to
make olive oil. But because this guy didn't want Jews
moving to the UK. They didn't get to have their
country anymore.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Even prior to the Balfour Declaration in the British Mandate,
Pan Arab newspapers warned against the motives of the Zionist
movement and its potential outcomes in displacing Palestinians from their land.
Khalil Sakakini, a Jerusalem ight writer and teacher, described Palestine
in the immediate aftermath of the war as follows. A
(27:32):
nation which has long been in the depths of sleep,
only wakes if it is rudely shaken by events, only
arises little by little. This was the situation of Palestine,
which for many centuries has been in the deepest sleep
until it was shaken by the Great War, shocked by
the Zionist movement and violated by the illegal policy of
(27:53):
the British, and awoke little by little. And while Britain
is generally an understanding be held responsible for the Balfour Declaration,
it is important to note that the statement would not
have been made without prior approval from the other Allied powers.
During World War One, in a war cabinet meeting on
September nineteen seventeen, British ministers decided that the quote views
(28:16):
of President Wilson should be obtained before any declaration was made,
and indeed, according to the Cabinet's minutes on October fourth,
the ministers recalled Arthur Balfour, confirming that Wilson was quote
extremely favorable to the movement. France surprise, surprise maybe to
no one, was also involved and announced its support. Prior
(28:37):
to the issuing of the Balfour Declaration, a May nineteen
seventeen letter from Jules Cambon, a French diplomat, to Nahem Sokolo,
the Polish Zionist, expressed the sympathetic views of the French
government towards a quote Jewish colonization in Palestine. This letter,
again the precursor to the Balfour Declaration, says it would
(29:01):
be a deed of justice and of reparation to assist
by the protection of the Allied powers in the renaissance
of the Jewish nationality in that land from which the
people of Israel were exiled so many centuries ago. The
Balfour Declaration again is widely seen as the precursor to
the nineteen forty eight Palestinian Nekba, when Zionist armed groups
(29:24):
who were trained by the British forcibly expelled more than
seven hundred and fifty thousand Palestinians from their homeland and
the massacred fifteen thousand Palestinians. Despite some opposition within the
war cabinet predicting such an outcome was probable, the British
government still chose to issue the declaration, and there is
(29:44):
no doubt that the British mandate created the conditions for
the Jewish minority to gain superiority in Palestine and build
a state for themselves at the expense of the Palestinian Arabs.
When the British decided to terminate their mandate in nineteen
forty seven and transfer the of Palestine to the United Nations,
the Jews already had an army that was formed out
(30:05):
of the armed paramilitary groups trained and created to fight
side by side with the British in World War Two.
More importantly, the British allowed the Jews to establish self
governing institutions such as the Jewish Agency, to prepare themselves
for a state when it came to it, while the
Palestinians were forbidden from doing so, paving the way for
(30:28):
the nineteen forty eight ethnic cleansing of Palestine. We're going
to end the episode with one more audio clip from
Sim's video. I just think it really describes and summarizes
why exactly Arthur Balfour is an extremely evil person.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
So here is Sim and the violence that has sprung
from the creation of Israel goes so much further beyond
its borders. I mean, the whole history of the Middle
East and of Western imperial conquest in the Middle East
hinges on Israel being there, All of US imperialism, the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, all of that would have
been impossible without the existence of Israel. So add Arthur
(31:04):
Balfour to your list of the greatest war criminals of
all time.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
It truly feels silly to be talking about anything else
at this time. So I do want to mention here
that at the time of this recording, there are over
eleven thousand Palestinians who have been murdered by the settler
colony of Israel in their genocide that is currently happening.
Nearly five thousand children are gone, have been slaughtered. Every
(31:32):
time I open my phone, I see the worst thing
I've ever seen in my life, and there are images
that we're seeing of. I mean, you've seen them, children
under the rubble, crying for help, parents losing their babies.
And it doesn't make sense for me to describe the images.
But my point is we have never seen a genocide
(31:54):
take place right before our eyes. All the proof is
there is really leaders have been very clear in their
intention for genocide. Just for example, Israeli Cabinet member Avidikter.
I don't care if I said his name wrong, but
he said that they are rolling out Nekba twenty twenty three.
(32:16):
That's one example of extremely genocidal language as being used
by not just Israel, but also American politicians as well.
There are photos side by side of the nineteen forty
eight Nekpa to what's happening right now. It's happening again.
The mass expulsion of Palestinians is happening right before our eyes.
(32:37):
There are Palestinians who have experienced the Nekba in nineteen
forty eight who are experiencing it again, being displaced so
many times in their own country, and right now over
a million Palestinians have been displaced. We are also just
being inundated with the most bizarre propaganda from the IOF.
(32:58):
I've decided to call them theof from now on instead
of the ideas, because they are not defending anything. They
are the Israeli offensive forces, not defensive. So just a
disclaimer there over my choice of words. But it's strange
they post photos of Arabic text saying it's something else.
Just recently I saw that they posted a calendar that
(33:20):
they found in a house that they say are a
list of Hamas hostages. It's literally just a calendar when
the words of the week written in Arabic. And that
is just one example of many. And I feel like
if I keep talking about this that will never stop.
But my point in bringing us back to modern times
(33:42):
is that this all started with a decision made by
men who had no business making a decision. Arthur Balfour
had no fucking business handing over a piece of land
that had nothing to do with him. It was never
his place. And what Galla see does that make sense
to anybody? Zionism and Jewishness and Judaism are not equivalent.
(34:08):
And I hope at this point in time people are
realizing that I hope that this episode sheds some light
on how the roots of Zionism itself are rooted in
anti Semitism. It's nobody's place to decide to play god
and just pretend people don't exist in a place that
you want. It doesn't work like that. That's not human.
(34:33):
So I think it's important to remember history like this
because something like this does not happen overnight. It did
not happen or start on October seventh. This is something
that has been decades in the making, and it all
started with one stupid man making a decision with other
stupid men that have way too much power that resulted
(34:54):
in the suffering, the continued suffering of an entire people,
dehumanization of an entire people. We're seeing it play out
right now. So I think as you learn about history
is to learn about things like this that maybe seem
like they happened so far away, they really didn't. We
are experiencing the ripples of those decisions, and that's the
(35:17):
episode for today. I hope it was informative, and I
hope the genocide of the Palestinian people comes to an end.
So in the meantime, free Palestine it.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
Could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts,
you can find sources for It could happen here, updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
Calls media.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hello everyone, it's me James, and I am joining you
today for another and long series of the little recordings
where I ask you to give us your money. Once again,
I am asking you to support the mutual aid work
being done at the border. I'm recording this in November,
and this week we have terrible weather forecasts that will
(00:23):
make conditions in Harcumba extremely dangerous for people who are
detained out there by the Department of Homeland Security. It
will mean that it's no exaggeration to say that people's
lives will be at risk, and that the important mutual
aid work that's already been done will only become more
important as we get rain, we get snow, and we
get cold temperatures, and people continue to be detained without shelter, food, water,
(00:46):
or adequate clothing. If you would like to support those efforts,
you can find the way to do so at link
tree slash Border Kindness. There's a dot before the ee,
so it's l I NKT dot ee slash Border Kindness.
I'll supposed to link on my Twitter if you'd like
to find it there.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Thank you, Hello, everybody, Welcome to It could happen here.
This is sharene. I'm back to talk about Palestine because
it's important, But when it comes to the history of
the creation of Israel and the subsequent ethnic cleansing and
mass expulsion of the Palestinian people, I feel like there's
(01:27):
a part of history that often gets overlooked. People usually
say Israel was created in nineteen forty eight, but the
intent to create it actually started decades before that. We're
going to be talking about the Balfour Declaration, which resulted
in a significant upheaval in the lives of Palestinians and
was issued over a century ago on November two, nineteen seventeen.
(01:50):
The declaration turned the Zionist aim of establishing a Jewish
state in Palestine into a reality. The pledge is generally
viewed as one of the main catalysts of the Nekba,
the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in nineteen forty eight, and
the conflict that ensued with the Zigon Estate of Israel.
The Balfour Declaration is regarded as one of the most
controversial and contested documents in the modern history of the
(02:13):
Arab world. So what is it the Balfour Declaration? It
means or is translated to Balfour's Promise in Arabic. It
was a public pledge by Britain in nineteen seventeen, declaring
its aim to quote establish a national home for the
Jewish people in Palestine. The declaration came in the form
of a letter from Britain's then Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour,
(02:35):
addressed to Lionel Walter Rothschild, a figurehead of the British
Jewish community at the time. The declaration was made during
World War One, which was just a reminder from nineteen
fourteen to nineteen eighteen, and this declaration was included in
the terms of the British mandate for Palestine after the
dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. So on November two, nineteen seventeen,
(02:58):
the Balfour Declaration became came the basis for the movement
to create a Jewish state in Palestine. A week later,
the declaration was published in the Times of London for
all the public to see. The content of the letter
is rather short, so I'm just going to read some
of it right now. It goes, Dear Lord Rothschild, I
(03:18):
have much pleasure in conveying to you on behalf of
his Majesty's government the following Declaration of Sympathy with the
Jewish Zionist Aspirations, which has been submitted to and approved
by the Cabinet. His Majesty's Government view with favor the
establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,
and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement
(03:40):
of this object. Keep in mind, at this time the
British had no control over Palestine. It was still under
the Ottoman Empire, but in this letter Britain was essentially
preparing to take it over in the very near future.
I also want to include that at this time Jewish
people only made up six percent of the Palestinian population.
I'm going to play audio from a video posted by
(04:01):
former guests of the show The Amazing sim Kern, where
they break down the last part of the declaration. Sim
is referencing in this audio Rashid Khalidi's book The One
Hundred Years War on Palestine, A History of Settler Colonialism
and Resistance nineteen seventeen to twenty seventeen.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
It being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which
may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non
Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights in political status
enjoyed by Jews in any other country. That last bit
sounds like, all right, well, he's saying we were not
going to tread on the civil and religious rights of Palestinians.
That's pretty good, right. But in the One hundred Years
(04:38):
War on Palestine, the book by Rashid Khalidi that I
am encouraging you all to keep reading along with me
this week, Khalidi does a great job breaking down the
rhetoric of this declaration and why it was actually a
declaration of war upon the Palestinian people. Yes, they were
promised civil and religious rights, but they were not granted
political or national rights. And this meant that for the
(05:00):
next fifteen years, as people in Palestine tried to resist
the establishment of a zion Est state within their country,
the takeover of all their land by Zionist groups, they
were unable to find any audience in the halls of
power because Balfour had declared them to not have these
rights and to not really be people. They weren't even
referred to as Arabs or Palestinians in.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
The declaration, just non Jewish.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Ninety four percent of the people of this land had
just been written out of existence as far as the
Western Powers were concerned. Kaleidi describes how between nineteen seventeen
and nineteen thirty six, almost all of the organized Palestinian
resistance to Zionism was peaceful and legalistic. They would form
political committees, but the British said, you're not allowed to
have political activity and shut those down harshly. They would
(05:47):
send delegations to the League of Nations, to other countries
to try to get to support to Britain, but they
would not even be seen in the halls of power.
They would not even get audiences because they were told basically,
as Palestinians, you have no rights, are not allowed to
have nationalistic interests.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
As I mentioned, the declaration was included in the terms
of the British Mandate for Palestine. The so called mandate
system set up by the Allied powers was a thinly
veiled form of colonialism and occupation. In retrospect, of course,
it's not a very thin veil at all. The mandate
system transferred rule from the territories that were previously controlled
(06:24):
by the powers defeated in the War Germany, Austria, Hungary,
the Ottoman Empire in Bulgaria to those who were victorious
in the war. The declared aim of the mandate system
was to allow the winners of the war to administer
the newly emerging states until they could become independent. The
case of Palestine, however, was unique. Unlike the rest of
(06:46):
the post war mandates, the main goal of the British
Mandate there was to create the conditions for the establishment
of a Jewish national home, even though Jews, again at
the time, constituted only six percent of the population. Upon
the start of the mandate, the British began to facilitate
the immigration of European Jews to Palestine. Between nineteen twenty
(07:06):
two and nineteen thirty five, the Jewish population rose to
nearly twenty seven percent of the total population. And even
though the Balfour Declaration included the caveat that quote nothing
shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious
rights of the existing non Jewish communities in Palestine, the
British Mandate was set up in a way to equip
(07:26):
Jews with the tools to establish self rule at the
expense of the Palestinian Arabs. Understandably enough, the document is
seen as controversial for several reasons. First, it was, in
the words of the late Palestinian American academic Edward Zaid,
quote made by European power about a non European territory
(07:47):
in a flat disregard of both the presence and wishes
of the native majority resident in that territory. In essence,
the Balfour Declaration promised Jews a land where the natives
made up more than ninety percent of the population. Second,
the declaration was one of three conflicting wartime promises made
by the British. Surprise surprise, when the declaration was released,
(08:11):
Britain had already promised the Arab's independence from the Ottoman
Empire in the nineteen fifteen Hussain McMahon Correspondents. However, the
British also promised the French and a separate treaty known
as the nineteen sixteen psychs Pico Agreement, that the majority
of Palestine would be under international administration while the rest
of the region would be split between the two colonial
(08:31):
powers after the war. This Hussain McMahon correspondence was a
series of letters exchanged in nineteen fifteen to nineteen sixteen
during World War One between Hussain ibn Ai, who was
the Emir of Mecca, and Sir Henry McMahon, the British
High Commissioner in Egypt. In general terms, the correspondence effectively
traded British support of an independent Arab state for the
(08:53):
Arab assistance in opposing the Ottoman Empire. However, the correspondence
was later contradicted by two things, the incompatible terms of
the sex Pico Agreement, which was secretly concluded between Britain
and France in May nineteen sixteen, and Britain's Balfour Declaration
in nineteen seventeen. The Declaration, however, meant that Palestine would
(09:13):
come under British occupation, that the Palestinian Arabs who lived
there would not gain independence. Third, the declaration introduced a
notion that was reportedly unprecedented in international law, that of
a quote national home. The use of the vague term
national home for the Jewish people as opposed to state
(09:34):
left the meaning open to interpretation. Earlier drafts of the
document used the phrase quote the reconstitution of Palestine as
a Jewish state, but that was later changed. However, in
a meeting with Zionist leader Heim Wizman, in nineteen twenty two,
Arthur Balfour and then Prime Minister David Lloyd George reportedly
(09:54):
said that the Balfour Declaration was quote always meant to
be an eventual Jewish state. Okay, let's take our first
break here because I have to. Okay, bye, and we're back.
(10:17):
So we're talking about the Balfour Declaration. But who exactly
is Arthur Balfour. Sim Kern in that same video that
I played earlier explains that he can be seen as
the person most responsible for violence in the Middle East
for the past century because when he wrote his declaration
in nineteen seventeen, he effectively wrote Palestinian rights out of
(10:37):
existence and surprising no one, Arthur Balfour was a terrible guy.
He was a white supremacist, a racist, and an anti Semite.
The Balfour Declaration is a statement that can fit into
two tweets. As we mentioned, Arthur Balfour, the British Foreign
Secretary at the time, announced that the British government would
support establishing a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine,
(11:01):
and more than one hundred years later, those written words
continued to define the dynamic between Israelis and Palestinians. In
twenty seventeen, marking one hundred years since the declaration, little
bitch Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin and Yahoo went to London
to commemorate the centennial occasion with Theresa May. I hope
you know by now, though, that the declaration is really
(11:23):
nothing worth celebrating. And though he may be most known
for aiding the Zionist cause in nineteen seventeen, it's crucial
to remember that Arthur Balfour was a white supremacist. He
made that much clear in his own words. In nineteen
o six, the British House of Commons was engaged in
a debate about the native blacks in South Africa. Nearly
(11:44):
all the members of Parliament agreed that the disenfranchisement of
the blacks was evil, but not Balfour, who almost alone
argued against it. When talking about the black people in
South Africa, he said, we have to face the facts.
Men are not born equal. The white in the black
races are not born with equal capacities. They are born
(12:06):
with different capacities which education cannot and will not change.
But Balfour's troubling views were not limited to Africa. In fact,
despite his now iconic support for Zionism that celebrated by
Zionists everywhere, he was not exactly a friend to the Jews.
In the late nineteenth century, Hagram's targeting Jews in the
Pale of Settlement had led to waves of Jewish flight
(12:30):
westward to England and the United States. Little insert here
that the Pale of Settlement was a western region of
the Russian Empire with varying borders that existed from seventeen
ninety one to nineteen seventeen, in which permanent residency by
Jews was allowed, and beyond which Jewish residency permanent or temporary,
was mostly forbidden. So created by imperial decree, the Jewish
(12:53):
Pale of Settlement was that part of the Russian Empire
within which Russia's Jewish population was required to live and
work for more than one hundred thirty years between the
late eighteenth and the early twentieth century. Although it was
initially intended to forestall commerce between Jews and the general
population of Russia, the restrictions imposed by the Pale fostered
(13:13):
the development of a distinctive religious and ethnic culture in
an area covering roughly three hundred and eighty six thousand
square miles or one million square kilometers between the Baltic
and Black Seas. The word pale as used in this sense,
comes from the Latin plus or stake, one that might
be used to indicate a boundary. A pale is thus
(13:35):
a district separated from the surrounding country. It may be
defined by physical boundaries, or it may be distinguished by
a different administrative or legal system. The Jewish Pale of
Settlement was both a defined area within the Russian Empire
and a legal entity regulated by laws that did not
apply to the Russian Empire as a whole. So back
(13:56):
to the main narrative. The targeting of Jews in the
Pale of Settlement led to immigration of many Jews to
the West, to England and the US. This influx of
refugees led to an increase in British anti immigrant racism
and outright anti semitism, themes not unfamiliar to US today.
Support for political action against immigrants grew as the English
(14:18):
public demanded immigration control to keep certain immigrants, particularly Jews,
out of the country. So this scared and xenophobic public
found a sympathetic ear in Balfour in nineteen o five,
while serving as Prime Minister, Balfour presided over the passage
of the Aliens Act. This legislation put the first restrictions
(14:39):
on immigration into Great Britain, and it was primarily aimed
at restricting Jewish immigration. According to historians, Balfour had personally
delivered passionate speeches about the imperative to restrict the waves
of Jews fleeing the Russian Empire from entering Britain. So
maybe it's not as astonishing as you would think that Balfour,
(15:00):
whose support of the Zionist cause has made him a
hero among Zionists, would have implemented anti Jewish laws. But
the truth is his support of Zionism stemmed from the
exact same source as his desire to limit Jewish immigration
to Britain. Both of these things can be traced back
to his white supremacist beliefs. Balfour lived in an area
(15:21):
of stirring nationalism highly defined by ethno religious identity. Because
of these sentiments, the early twentieth century was a time
when seemingly liberal Western nations struggled with the challenge of
incorporating Jewish citizens. Balfour wanted to keep the UK as
a white Christian ethno state. What the Zionists provided Balfour
(15:42):
with was a solution to the challenges Jewish citizens posed
to his ethno nationalist vision, a solution that didn't force
him to reckon with them. Instead of insisting that societies
except all citizens as equals, regardless of racial or religious background,
the Zionist move movement offered a different answer separation. Balfour
(16:04):
saw in Zionism not just a blessing for Jews, but
for the West as well. In nineteen nineteen, he wrote
the introduction to Nahem Sokolow's History of Zionism. In this introduction,
Balfour wrote that the Zionist movement would quote mitigate the
age long miseries created for Western civilization by the presence
in its midst of a body which it too long
(16:26):
regarded as alien and even hostile, but which it was
equally unable to expel or to absorb. By both giving
Jews a place to go and a place to leave,
Zionism seemingly solved two problems at once in Balfour's mind.
In other words, his support of Zionism was motivated by
(16:46):
his desire to protect Britain from the negative effects or
the miseries, as he said, of having Jews in its population.
Rather than protecting the rights of one of its minorities,
Britain could simply export them, or at las least not
import anymore. This is one of the many reasons Zionism
itself is anti Semitic. We can even fast forward to
(17:09):
now and see how Zionists are telling anti Zionist Jewish
people that they're no longer Jewish for supporting Palestine. That
belief and statement in itself is extremely anti Semitic. Criticizing
Israel on the Israeli government, however, is not but putting
that aside. We can see that from the very beginning,
even in its origin, Zionists associated and allied themselves with
(17:32):
the worst kinds of people, like people who believed that
Jewish people are quote an alien and hostile body among them.
Needless to say, Balfour's view of Zionism is steeped in
the same kind of white supremacy as Balfour's view of
South Africa's blacks. But his support of the Zionist dream
had another problem. Rather than solving the problem of how
(17:54):
to handle a minority living in a white majority country,
the Balfour declaration just shifted the say problem into a
different geography. The tension between ethno nationalism and equality is
definitely and equally present today between the Jordan River and
the Mediterranean Sea, where the Israeli state rules over the
fate of millions of Palestinians who either have no right
(18:16):
to vote, are treated as second class citizens, or our
refugees denied repatriation. Today it is Israel that views Palestinians
as demographic threats and sees the quote presence in its
midst of a body which is too long regarded as
alien and even hostile, by which it was equally unable
to expel or to absorb. Let's take our second break
(18:38):
here again, because I have to so see you later
and we are back. So that Balfour's legacy of supremacy
(18:58):
persists as much as British support for Israel does. Is
no accident. We have arrived at this point today because
the white supremacist attitudes of Balfour informed policy lending imperial
right to a project in pursuit of national self determination
for Jews by trampling on the rights of native non Jews. Remarkably,
(19:21):
Balfour was unabashedly aware of the hypocrisy in his stance.
In nineteen nineteen, he wrote a letter that said this
to the British Prime Minister. The weak point of our position,
of course, is that in the case of Palestine, we
deliberately and rightly declined to accept the principle of self determination.
We do not propose even to go through the form
(19:42):
of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country,
the seven hundred thousand Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.
Those are his words and a letter that he wrote
to the British Prime Minister. So there's no misconstruing that
there those seven hundred thousand airs. Arabs, of course, made
up approximately ninety percent of the population of Palestine. Again
(20:06):
bears repeating that Jewish people, before this declaration was implemented,
made up only six percent of the population. And therein
lies the fundamental problem that continues through this day, more
than one hundred years later. Palestinians are denied the right
to have rights because from the outset their views, their
human rights and by extension, their very humanity, were consistently
(20:29):
seen as inferior to those of others. That was clear
in Balfour's perspective and the British Mandate's policy, and it
persists in one form or another in many, if not most,
of the policies of the Zionist State of Israel through
this day. In modern times, as much as in nineteen seventeen,
the battle between ethno nationalism and equality has arisen to
(20:52):
the foreground. We saw this in Donald Trump's rise in
America and in Theresa May's brexited Britain. Other than resolving
this tension, Balfour's support for Zionism merely exported it to Palestine,
and resisting the legacy of Balfour's racism is absolutely necessary
if there is ever to be peace in Palestine and
(21:14):
beyond a little bit more history here about why this
declaration was issued. The question of why has been a
subject of debate for historians for decades, with historians using
different sources to suggest various explanations. Some argue that many
in the British government at the time or Zionists themselves.
Others say the declaration was issued out of an anti
(21:36):
Semitic reasoning that giving Palestine to the Jews would be
a solution to the quote unquote Jewish problem in mainstream academia. However,
there are a set of reasons over which there is
a general consensus. One, control over Palestine was a strategic
imperial interest to keep Egypt and the Suez Canal within
(21:57):
Britain's sphere of influence. Two, Britain had to side with
Zionists to rally support among the Jews in the United
States and Russia, hoping they could encourage their governments to
stay in the war until victory. Three, there was intense
Zionist lobbying and strong connections between the Zionist community in
Britain and the British government, as well as some of
(22:18):
the officials in the government being Zionists themselves. Four, Jews
were being persecuted in Europe, and the British government was
sympathetic to their suffering. I think that last point is
usually used as a validation to white Israel exists today,
but feeling sorry for a people and giving them someone
else's land is really not a solution in my opinion.
(22:41):
Of course, the Balfour Declaration was also not received well
by Palestinians and Arabs. In nineteen nineteen, then US President
Woodrow Wilson appointed a commission to look into public opinion
on the mandatory system in Syria and Palestine. The investigation
was known as the King Krane Commission. It found that
the majority of Palestinians expressed a strong opposition to Zionism,
(23:05):
leading the conductors of the commission to advise a modification
of the mandate's goal. The late Anni Abbe Alhadi, a
Palestinian political figure, condemned the Balfour Declaration in his memoirs,
saying it was made by an English foreigner who had
no claim to Palestine, to a foreign jew who had
no right to it. However, it's very important to mention
(23:26):
here that the other vital important source for insight into
Palestinian opinion on the declaration at the time, AKA the Press,
was closed down by the Ottomans at the start of
the war in nineteen fourteen and only began to reappear
in nineteen nineteen, but it was under British military censorship
in November nineteen nineteen when the Elisti la la Ladibi,
(23:48):
the Arab independence newspaper based in Damascus, was reopened. One
article had a response to a public speech given by
Herbert Samuel, a Jewish cabinet minister in London, on the
second anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. The article said quote
our country is Arab, Palestine is Arab, and Palestine must
remain Arab. In nineteen twenty, the Third Palestinian Congress and
(24:12):
Haifa decried the British government's plans to support the Zionist
project and rejected the declaration as a violation of international
law and the rights of the indigenous population. I'm going
to pull audio from Sim's video here. Again, they kind
of summarize in a really good way what happened in
the years leading up to the Nekba. So here is Sim.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
And even still until nineteen thirty six, Palestinians are trying
to peacefully, legalistically resist decolonization, which, unfortunately history teaches us
doesn't work that great usually. However, inspired by the examples
of Iraq and Syria, which had managed to overthrow their
colonizers starting with a general strike, Palestinians organize a strike
(24:56):
in nineteen thirty six. Again, this starts out as just
a peaceful strike, but it is brutally repressed by the
British overlords. We're like, no, you're not allowed to strike.
You are our captive wage slavery labor force.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
You have to go do your work.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
Khalidi shows how Britain was also very strategically sowing internal
divisions within the Palestinian leadership, turning people certain to their
side by bribing them to work against one another. And
so the strike fell apart in nineteen thirty six. But
then only then in nineteen thirty seven did.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
An armed revolt breakout.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Much is made by Zionists about this Arab revolt and
how this was justification for the Knuckba, which would ultimately
kill fifteen thousand Palestinians and displace hundreds of thousands more.
But this was no religious massacre, and that's reflected in
the casualties. Yes, several hundred Jews died during the revolt,
but it took one hundred thousand British troops to suppress
the revolt, and the fighting was mostly between the Arabs
(25:50):
and the British. And it's estimated that between fourteen and
seventeen percent of the adult male Arab population was killed, wounded, imprisoned,
or exiled. So the population of Palestinians was absolutely devastated
by this revolt.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
By the end of it.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
What struck me a lot reading the conclusion of this
chapter was, you know, the Western media, which is so Islamophobic,
portrays Palestinians as like inherently violent and bloodthirsty and anti Semitic,
But that just isn't reflected in this history at all.
In fact, as Khaledi mentioned, several scholars argue that, you know,
the Palestinians really should have organized an armed revolt earlier.
It was too late by the time they did. But
(26:24):
they had spent fifteen years since the Balfour Declaration trying
peacefully and legalistically to earn their rights, and that was
ultimately a dead end. But Palestinians really clearly did not
want to fight a war. It wasn't until they'd exhausted
every single other option to them. They tried legal routes,
they tried organizing, they tried a strike. You know, they
had done everything they could. And this was a population
(26:47):
that had been stripped of huge amounts of its land,
that was destitute, that was impoverished, that was starving, that
was shut out from any economic opportunity in the land
they had lived on for millennia.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
They were far.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
They didn't want to wage a war. They wanted to
make olive oil. But because this guy didn't want Jews
moving to the UK. They didn't get to have their
country anymore.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Even prior to the Balfour Declaration in the British Mandate,
Pan Arab newspapers warned against the motives of the Zionist
movement and its potential outcomes in displacing Palestinians from their land.
Khalil Sakakini, a Jerusalem ight writer and teacher, described Palestine
in the immediate aftermath of the war as follows. A
(27:32):
nation which has long been in the depths of sleep,
only wakes if it is rudely shaken by events, only
arises little by little. This was the situation of Palestine,
which for many centuries has been in the deepest sleep
until it was shaken by the Great War, shocked by
the Zionist movement and violated by the illegal policy of
(27:53):
the British, and awoke little by little. And while Britain
is generally an understanding be held responsible for the Balfour Declaration,
it is important to note that the statement would not
have been made without prior approval from the other Allied powers.
During World War One, in a war cabinet meeting on
September nineteen seventeen, British ministers decided that the quote views
(28:16):
of President Wilson should be obtained before any declaration was made,
and indeed, according to the Cabinet's minutes on October fourth,
the ministers recalled Arthur Balfour, confirming that Wilson was quote
extremely favorable to the movement. France surprise, surprise maybe to
no one, was also involved and announced its support. Prior
(28:37):
to the issuing of the Balfour Declaration, a May nineteen
seventeen letter from Jules Cambon, a French diplomat, to Nahem Sokolo,
the Polish Zionist, expressed the sympathetic views of the French
government towards a quote Jewish colonization in Palestine. This letter,
again the precursor to the Balfour Declaration, says it would
(29:01):
be a deed of justice and of reparation to assist
by the protection of the Allied powers in the renaissance
of the Jewish nationality in that land from which the
people of Israel were exiled so many centuries ago. The
Balfour Declaration again is widely seen as the precursor to
the nineteen forty eight Palestinian Nekba, when Zionist armed groups
(29:24):
who were trained by the British forcibly expelled more than
seven hundred and fifty thousand Palestinians from their homeland and
the massacred fifteen thousand Palestinians. Despite some opposition within the
war cabinet predicting such an outcome was probable, the British
government still chose to issue the declaration, and there is
(29:44):
no doubt that the British mandate created the conditions for
the Jewish minority to gain superiority in Palestine and build
a state for themselves at the expense of the Palestinian Arabs.
When the British decided to terminate their mandate in nineteen
forty seven and transfer the of Palestine to the United Nations,
the Jews already had an army that was formed out
(30:05):
of the armed paramilitary groups trained and created to fight
side by side with the British in World War Two.
More importantly, the British allowed the Jews to establish self
governing institutions such as the Jewish Agency, to prepare themselves
for a state when it came to it, while the
Palestinians were forbidden from doing so, paving the way for
(30:28):
the nineteen forty eight ethnic cleansing of Palestine. We're going
to end the episode with one more audio clip from
Sim's video. I just think it really describes and summarizes
why exactly Arthur Balfour is an extremely evil person.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
So here is Sim and the violence that has sprung
from the creation of Israel goes so much further beyond
its borders. I mean, the whole history of the Middle
East and of Western imperial conquest in the Middle East
hinges on Israel being there, All of US imperialism, the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, all of that would have
been impossible without the existence of Israel. So add Arthur
(31:04):
Balfour to your list of the greatest war criminals of
all time.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
It truly feels silly to be talking about anything else
at this time. So I do want to mention here
that at the time of this recording, there are over
eleven thousand Palestinians who have been murdered by the settler
colony of Israel in their genocide that is currently happening.
Nearly five thousand children are gone, have been slaughtered. Every
(31:32):
time I open my phone, I see the worst thing
I've ever seen in my life, and there are images
that we're seeing of. I mean, you've seen them, children
under the rubble, crying for help, parents losing their babies.
And it doesn't make sense for me to describe the images.
But my point is we have never seen a genocide
(31:54):
take place right before our eyes. All the proof is
there is really leaders have been very clear in their
intention for genocide. Just for example, Israeli Cabinet member Avidikter.
I don't care if I said his name wrong, but
he said that they are rolling out Nekba twenty twenty three.
(32:16):
That's one example of extremely genocidal language as being used
by not just Israel, but also American politicians as well.
There are photos side by side of the nineteen forty
eight Nekpa to what's happening right now. It's happening again.
The mass expulsion of Palestinians is happening right before our eyes.
(32:37):
There are Palestinians who have experienced the Nekba in nineteen
forty eight who are experiencing it again, being displaced so
many times in their own country, and right now over
a million Palestinians have been displaced. We are also just
being inundated with the most bizarre propaganda from the IOF.
(32:58):
I've decided to call them theof from now on instead
of the ideas, because they are not defending anything. They
are the Israeli offensive forces, not defensive. So just a
disclaimer there over my choice of words. But it's strange
they post photos of Arabic text saying it's something else.
Just recently I saw that they posted a calendar that
(33:20):
they found in a house that they say are a
list of Hamas hostages. It's literally just a calendar when
the words of the week written in Arabic. And that
is just one example of many. And I feel like
if I keep talking about this that will never stop.
But my point in bringing us back to modern times
(33:42):
is that this all started with a decision made by
men who had no business making a decision. Arthur Balfour
had no fucking business handing over a piece of land
that had nothing to do with him. It was never
his place. And what Galla see does that make sense
to anybody? Zionism and Jewishness and Judaism are not equivalent.
(34:08):
And I hope at this point in time people are
realizing that I hope that this episode sheds some light
on how the roots of Zionism itself are rooted in
anti Semitism. It's nobody's place to decide to play god
and just pretend people don't exist in a place that
you want. It doesn't work like that. That's not human.
(34:33):
So I think it's important to remember history like this
because something like this does not happen overnight. It did
not happen or start on October seventh. This is something
that has been decades in the making, and it all
started with one stupid man making a decision with other
stupid men that have way too much power that resulted
(34:54):
in the suffering, the continued suffering of an entire people,
dehumanization of an entire people. We're seeing it play out
right now. So I think as you learn about history
is to learn about things like this that maybe seem
like they happened so far away, they really didn't. We
are experiencing the ripples of those decisions, and that's the
(35:17):
episode for today. I hope it was informative, and I
hope the genocide of the Palestinian people comes to an end.
So in the meantime, free Palestine it.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
Could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts,
you can find sources for It could happen here, updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Host
Robert Evans
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