November 2, 2015 was the 98th anniversary of the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the letter that committed the British government of the time to the idea of establishing a Jewish home in Palestine / Eretz Yisrael.
That Palestinians in Gaza marked the anniversary by burning British, Israeli and U.S. flags is not surprising but was covered by the Daily Mail.
The history of the Middle East can be baffling to the uninformed reader, particularly if the subject matter dates back to the early 1900’s and still resonates even today. That’s why the Daily Mail has a responsibility to ensure that the historical background is presented in context.
Instead, we read this:
The Balfour Declaration
In a letter dated November 2, 1917, the UK’s Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour wrote to Walter Rothschild, the second Baron Rothschild and a leader of the British Jewish community.
Balfour promised Rothschild ‘a national home for the Jewish people’ in the heart of Palestine.
He further promised that ‘His Majesty’s government…will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object’.
He made the agreement on the condition that ‘nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country’.
But Balfour gave no further instructions as to how the contradictory instructions – to establish a Jewish state in Palestine without prejudicing the Palestinian communities already there – were to be carried out, in the surprisingly brief document.
The Palestinians are furious that their land has technically been promised to the Jewish people, causing increased tension in the religious city of Jerusalem – revered in both religions.
It’s hardly surprising that the myth of an existing historical Palestinian state that was ‘colonized’ by European Jews continues to circulate if this is the sort of lazy historical background being fed to media consumers.
Nowhere in the article does it mention that Palestine, as it was known as then, was a part of the Ottoman Empire and there had never existed an independent Palestinian state.
Nowhere in the article does it mention that indigenous Jewish communities had lived in the Land of Israel going back over 3,000 years and there existed a continuous and uninterrupted Jewish religious and national connection to that land.
The article mistakenly writes that the Balfour Declaration gave instructions “to establish a Jewish state in Palestine.” In fact, the Declaration supported a Jewish homeland, and not necessarily a state. The Balfour Declaration was but one step on the way to the fulfillment of the Zionist program of restoring Jewish sovereignty in the Jewish people’s ancient homeland.
Indeed, to talk of Palestinians in those days referred to both Jewish and Arab residents of the land. When the Daily Mail refers to “without prejudicing the Palestinian communities already there,” it is not clearly stating just who those communities are, instead working on the presumption that Palestinian communities were Palestinian Arabs.
This is compounded by the statement that “The Palestinians are furious that their land has technically been promised to the Jewish people.” In 1917 at the time of the Balfour Declaration, there was no national Palestinian identity – the non-Jewish residents of the land considered themselves to be part of the wider Arab nation and Arab nationalists sought an independent Arab state not in Palestine per se but as part of the Ottoman Arab Middle East as a whole.
So it was not at that time “their land” that the Palestinians are allegedly furious that it had been promised to the Jewish people.
By missing out any historical context, the Daily Mail has erased legitimate Jewish rights that existed even before the Balfour Declaration and has constructed a Palestinian national identity that did not exist in 1917. (Note: this does not mean that a Palestinian identity did not emerge in later years.)
Read more about Pre-State Israel, particularly during the World War One period, in the Jewish Virtual Library and the Balfour Declaration itself, here.
[sc:graybox ]You can send your considered comments to the Daily Mail’s Mail Online website requesting the insertion of some historical context by emailing corrections@mailonline.co.uk .
Featured image: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons with additions by HonestReporting
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With overall responsibility for HonestReporting’s content and output, Simon was part of the HonestReporting team from November 2005 to 2020, following several years working in a variety of non-profit organizations, including the Jewish Agency and the Board of Deputies of British Jews prior to immigrating to Israel in 2001 from London.
In Israel, Simon has worked for BICOM and as Managing Editor of NGO Monitor as well as serving for a short period in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit.
Simon has a BSoc.Sc in International Studies and Political Science from the University of Birmingham and a MSc in History of International Relations from the London School of Economics.
Palestine has never been an arab land only STUPIDITY IS THEIRS and lies and incapacity to understand anything. I just saw from palwatch those stupid fakestinians want simply to…erase the Balfour Declaration! How can such an important FACT which on top of that gave birth to a quite powerful nation be…erased by their blabber? They only confrm my opinion that ARABS ARE THE DUMBEST NATION ON EARTH.
Ask them who the ruler of Palestine was between 1900 and 1967. If it was Palestinian land they must have had a President? There was no Arab nation in Palestine under the Ottoman Empire so when did it become an Arab nation?
It’s the Daily Fail. What did you expect? Historical accuracy? Given that the Editor of this rag is a xenophobe of the first water, still peddling the anti-German rhetoric of the 1900s, and the anti-Zionist propaganda of the 1930s, you should not be surprised by this very sloppy reporting. Good luck getting it corrected, I suspect Hell will suffer an Ice Age first.
There is no reason for a British media to be concerned. The British Government is surely not going to take them to task. Perhaps they will recieve extra grants and a wink and a nod. Its the British people whose silence is so confounding.
https://jtf.org/forum/index.php?topic=78273.0
Uncovered: U.K. intel encouraged Arab armies to invade Israel in 1948
Intelligence obtained by the French secret services in the Middle East sheds new light on Britain’s role in the Arab-Israeli War of Independence.
By Meir Zamir
Sep 14, 2014
Here’s what’s ironic.
The British never gave 1 inch of land to the Jews from 1917 to 1948.
Instead the British gave the entire East Bank to the Arabs in 1922 and named the country after the Jordan River. (Jordan) Jordan or the East Bank was 77% of the British Mandate borders.
Also the British gave out a White Paper barring all Jewish immigration in 1939 while millions of Jews were being murdered in Europe. The Brits did this to appease the Arabs
12 Comments
Where was Mohamed and Islam,when King Salamon ruled the Kindom of Judea,in its capital,Jerusalem.
Zvi Avidror
What do you expect from a newspaper run by pigs?
Palestine has never been an arab land only STUPIDITY IS THEIRS and lies and incapacity to understand anything. I just saw from palwatch those stupid fakestinians want simply to…erase the Balfour Declaration! How can such an important FACT which on top of that gave birth to a quite powerful nation be…erased by their blabber? They only confrm my opinion that ARABS ARE THE DUMBEST NATION ON EARTH.
Arabs lie…The Daily Mail lies! Birds of a feather……
Ask them who the ruler of Palestine was between 1900 and 1967. If it was Palestinian land they must have had a President? There was no Arab nation in Palestine under the Ottoman Empire so when did it become an Arab nation?
It’s the Daily Fail. What did you expect? Historical accuracy? Given that the Editor of this rag is a xenophobe of the first water, still peddling the anti-German rhetoric of the 1900s, and the anti-Zionist propaganda of the 1930s, you should not be surprised by this very sloppy reporting. Good luck getting it corrected, I suspect Hell will suffer an Ice Age first.
There is no reason for a British media to be concerned. The British Government is surely not going to take them to task. Perhaps they will recieve extra grants and a wink and a nod. Its the British people whose silence is so confounding.
I hope that journalists will remember that support for Israel goes back to World war I.
https://jtf.org/forum/index.php?topic=78273.0
Uncovered: U.K. intel encouraged Arab armies to invade Israel in 1948
Intelligence obtained by the French secret services in the Middle East sheds new light on Britain’s role in the Arab-Israeli War of Independence.
By Meir Zamir
Sep 14, 2014
Here’s what’s ironic.
The British never gave 1 inch of land to the Jews from 1917 to 1948.
Instead the British gave the entire East Bank to the Arabs in 1922 and named the country after the Jordan River. (Jordan) Jordan or the East Bank was 77% of the British Mandate borders.
Also the British gave out a White Paper barring all Jewish immigration in 1939 while millions of Jews were being murdered in Europe. The Brits did this to appease the Arabs
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