We ask the international community to Make It Right for the Palestinians
Prof./Amb. Manuel Hassassian

70 years ago today the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 181 which meant the partition of historic Palestine and the creation of Israel at the expense of the Palestinians. The United Nations resolution was the natural offspring of Britain’s treacherous betrayal of the Palestinians in the Balfour Declaration wherein Britain used its colonial might to give Zionist Jews a land which did not belong to them and for which they were supposedly custodians of under the Mandate system. Nor did it belong to the beneficiaries of Britain’s generous offer.

The partition of Palestine led to catastrophic consequences for the Palestinian people. It led to the ethnic cleansing and dispossession of the majority of the population who have been forced to live for generation after generation as refugees. It led to the racist oppression of those who escaped dispossession but still live in apartheid Israeli. It led to the daily systematic violence, discrimination and regime of fear of Israel’s brutal occupation which it inflicts on Palestinian men, women and children in occupied Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

40 years ago, the United Nations, in recognition of the suffering of the Palestinian people and of the unresolved refugee problem and brutal Israeli occupation declared the 29th November as International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. This day is observed by Palestinians in historic Palestine, in occupied Palestine, in the refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria and in the Palestinian diaspora globally. It is observed by many grassroots organisations, charities and pro-Palestinian groups which work tirelessly for Palestinian rights to which the Palestinian people are, and will forever be, grateful for their unerring support.

Today is important to remember and put on record the many injustices Palestinians suffered and still suffer:

• Dispossession
• Oppression
• Occupation
• Theft of land and resources
• The blockade of Gaza
• Institutionalized racism
• Collective punishment including the demolition of family homes
• Summary executions
• Arbitrary arrests
• Imprisonment without trial including the imprisonment of children
• Eviction of Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem and revocation of their IDs
• Lawless violence by extreme settler groups

Palestinians will never tire of telling the world of the crimes against them until the international community puts real pressure on Israel to end its illegal occupation and theft of Palestinian land, until there is a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem based on UN resolution 194 and until a sovereign Palestinian state is established on 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. The British government should be at the forefront of the efforts to bring Israel to task and create Palestinian statehood. It was Britain which opened the floodgates with its infamous Balfour Declaration of 1917 and 100 year on from the declaration and 70 years on from Palestine’s partition, Britain should finish its unfinished business and make it right for Palestine and the Palestinians.