Yeah in my opinion the
Balfour declaration, was not a betrayal of the Arab people we know that Mahmoud Abbas earlier this year?
Requested that the British government
Apologize on the hundredth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration for the damage it did to the Arab population
I would disagree with him and I would disagree with him on
three points the first of all as you must understand the context of the world in
Post-world War one period
President Woodrow Wilson of the US was
Had quite a bit of clout because the US had been the tipping
Nation and for victory in the World War one and he promoted his fourteen points
Which included ethnic or national self-determination and it was designed to break up the multinational
multi-ethnic empires especially Austria
Austro-hungarian Empire
But it was and then also and then the Ottoman Empire but it
did not result in perfect solutions because there were always minorities even in these newly created States and
Adjustments had to be made a lot of migration was?
undertaken for example in the Ottoman Empire
there were many many Greeks living in what is now Anatoly or the Turkish Republic and many Turks living in Greece they had a
Population exchange to to lessen the tensions and most of these people moved. Along the Levant
the eastern end of
Mediterranean to the west of the Jordan and the rivers north of it in the mountains north of it he had another
highly complex multi-ethnic area with both Sunni and Shia Muslims you had Druze and ala whites who are kind of
dissenters from
Islam and you had Maronite Christians and Greek Orthodox Christians and Jews
so it wasn't a simple easy solution for this territory to come up with with a
proper breakdown by ethnic group
and furthermore the the five Allied victorious
nations Britain France
Italy United States and Japan as well as all 51 members of the League of Nations agreed the since the Jews
did not have a territory that there's historic connections with the land they called Palestine were sufficient to
designate that area their national homeland and so it was agreed upon and it was very
seriously considered what would be the disposition the Arabs were getting Syria
Lebanon Iraq
and the Hejaz
Saudi Arabia these areas were all gaining independence
So the Arabs had plenty of countries and it may be a slight inconvenience to a few in terms of rulership but all their rights
were preserved
secondly the British and
the Hussein family the guardians of Mecca
Did enter into some exchange and discussions of what might be a disposition of lands after the Ottoman Empire was dismantled
the Hussein family wanted to become the
rulers of Arabia a newly created Arabia and they
wanted British assistance in this an agreement and Britain
Shows some interest in it and discussed the possibilities of this but they, did exclude the coastal area
And yet, also made it a conditional offer that there would be a successful Arab uprising something that did not occur
even with the sural you know Lawrence Arabia Colonel Lawrence and and the help that he provided them and
Also related to that was a most important of all the two parties agreed not to agree until after World
War one when they did seem to come to an agreement so there really
was no duplicity in the part of Britain here whatsoever and thirdly the average Arab a
resident of the territory that
became Palestine was vastly better off under British rule and he had been under the rather inefficient and
corrupt Ottoman regime he had
access to
Equality under the law
He had free education he had
a much healthier environment they got rid of malaria basically he had the access to
modern roads and railroads and
Much had much better salaries that provel were probably provided the British Mandate as well as Jewish
Agencies farms in industry on the like so aside from the fact that you no longer had a Muslim ruler
He still, was much better off and he had been under the Ottoman Turks who weren't even Arabs either so I
really think there's very very weak case
for unn being unfair to the Arabs
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