Britain had experience in such matters, having ruled the Indian subcontinent since 1858 "when the rule of the East India Company was transferred to the Crown in the person of Queen Victoria (who in 1876 was proclaimed Empress of India)." (Wikipedia).
That rule lasted until 1947, "when the British provinces of India were partitioned into two sovereign dominion states: the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan." (Wikipedia).
The Turks had been more passive in their role as empire rulers. They respected, for example, the Arab customs that allowed for the development of tribal structures.
The Jewish minority in Palestine, 10 percent of the 1917 population, had strong backers in Britain and the United States, a benefit the Indians of the India subcontinent and the Arabs of the 1917 Levant, did not possess.
When Lord Arthur James Balfour, former British prime minister and in 1917, the foreign minister, sent his letter to Lord Rothschild, the letter promised that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine."
This reveals an attitude of superiority toward Arabs, a blatant racism that describes the Arabs as "existing non-Jewish communities," who were promised only civil and religious rights, not political.
That fake lie in the 1917 letter was written to reassure British citizens that their rulers knew "we" are superior to non-whites, but like whites dealing with black slaves in 19th century America, "we" will be fair and kind.
The truth was that Britain officialdom cared little for the Arabs in Palestine. They actually viewed them as inferior and a "problem." Britain's goal was to help the Zionists establish a Jewish "homeland" on territory which was home to Arabs.
Aided by reaction to the horrors of the Holocaust, the Zionists finally got their state in 1948. The promise not to prejudice "the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine" was left to the new colonial government of the state of Israel.
These promises about Palestinian "rights" were as fake as a magician's rabbit. The new state even codified the lie-promise in its Declaration of Independence, adopted in May, 1948. It was a promise that has consistently been broken:
"The State of Israel will uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens, without distinction of race, creed or sex; will guarantee full freedom of conscience, worship, education and culture; will safeguard the sanctity and inviolability of the shrines and Holy Places of all religions; and will dedicate itself to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations."
Tim Llewellyn is a former BBC Middle East Correspondent and author, and now an associate of the UK-based Balfour Project.
He writes in Mondoweiss this week that the League of Nations imposed on Britain a "sacred trust" when it gave Britain "the mandate to rule Palestine after the First World War."
Llewellyn writes this stinging analysis of the anniversary that united May and Netanyahu for their dinner party:
"The 100th anniversary of Mr. Balfour's great deception is not, after all, turning out to be the unalloyed celebration the Zionists and their stooges in Westminster and Whitehall had planned."Rather the reverse: a continuing parade of British self-examination, throughout society, and the intention to put matters right at last for the Palestinian people."
He then points to a series of counter-events in Britain denouncing the May-Netanyahu dinner celebration. The Balfour Declaration is being understood in Britain for what it was from the beginning, a deception designed to create a new state on stolen land.
Samia Khoury, an indefatigable Palestinian activist and blogger, has lived in the West Bank her entire life. She understands colonizers.
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