RAMALLAH, October 31, 2017 (WAFA) – Marking 100 years for the infamous Balfour Declaration, the Negotiations Affairs Department (NAD) in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) reiterated in a statement issued on Tuesday on Britain to rectify its historic mistake against the Palestinian people by recognizing the State of Palestine on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

“The Palestinian people and friends of Palestine around the world commemorate on November 2nd the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, which has entailed a heavy political and human price for the Palestinian people since 1917. This declaration promised the establishment of a ‘national home for the Jewish people’ in Palestine, which led to the displacement and uprooting of the indigenous Palestinian people and replaced them with other people,” said the statement.

“It has been 100 years since this infamous promise, seventy years after the partition plan that paved the way for the Nakba, which led to the forceful displacement of the people of Palestine, and fifty years since Israel‘s colonial occupation of Palestine.”

The NAD statement went on to say that “Palestine continues to demand the British government a formal apology to our people, to redress its victims in addition to compensation, and to recognize the State of Palestine on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. The centenary of Balfour Declaration, therefore, grants a historic opportunity for Britain to rectify this historic mistake and injustice inflicted on our people.”

Meanwhile, the PLO’s Department of Culture and Information (DCI) produced a video clip entitled Britain: Make it Right, which “explores the Balfour Declaration‘s ongoing legacy of injustice and Britain‘s refusal to take responsibility for this shameful colonial legacy,” according to a statement.

The video also “explains how such a declaration denied the existence and national rights of the Palestinian people, setting in motion a century of dispossession, ethnic cleansing, dehumanization, and continued occupation. This colonial legacy, borne of the racist colonial mentality that justified to colonial powers the subjugation and dehumanization of peoples throughout history, is a living reality for Palestinians.”

The DCI said “Britain must take responsibility for this ongoing legacy and begin making it right.”

M.K.