The Balfour Declaration: How British PM Theresa May Got It Wrong
How can one small statement, get it so wrong! I am obviously pleased to see the British Prime Minister stand up for Israel and for the historic Balfour Declaration against the ridiculous rantings of Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, calling to sue Britain for having issued the Declaration.
However, language is important. At the Annual Conservative Friends of Israel luncheon on December 12th, Prime Minister Theresa May declared her pride in:
creating a homeland for the Jewish people.
You see, herein lies a major reason for Israel’s problems on the stage of public opinion. The wording.
First of all “people” should be capitalized. We are not just a collection of random people who happen to be Jews – we are The Jewish People.
Second, Israel is not “A homeland FOR” the Jewish People — it is “THE homeland OF” the Jewish People. In other words, it could not have been anywhere else but where it is.
And finally, our homeland was not CREATED by the Balfour Declaration — it was RECOGNIZED by the Balfour Declaration. This bears repeating: our ancient homeland was recognized, not created, by Balfour; and its re-establishment was achieved by all that followed Balfour’s letter.
When you cement into people’s consciousness a certain interpretation of events, as represented so simply by the statement issued by PM May, you make it hard for people, insufficiently knowledgeable about Israeli and Middle Eastern history, to understand the rationale behind Israel’s struggle today against those who want to destroy her. Many do not understand that Jews from around the world are branches of the same Israelite tree.
The roots of that tree are deep in the soil of the Land of Israel and archaeological research on the land keeps uncovering the depth and breadth of these roots. Multiple branches were broken off and, while some stayed close to the trunk of the tree, most were sent whirling off in all directions all around the globe until finally the winds started blowing back toward the Land of Israel. Balfour recognized all of this and officially declared that Palestine was Jewish.
In concession to those Arabs who also lived on that land (let us for now put aside the fact that many of them gravitated to the area after the Jews started working it), over half of Palestine was given to the Arabs and called “Jordan”.
Britain can be proud, therefore, of its part in the re-establishing of Israel, as a modern state, on the lands of our ancient Jewish Homeland. Just let them word it correctly from now on. OK?
[Feature Image is licensed under the Open Government Licence v1.0 (OGL).]
Thank you for making these points. If Teresa May had made them part of her statement it would actually have been a more powerful rebuttal of the ridiculous claims of Abbas.
Indeed semantics, the correct and the right wording used in describing things and events is of prime importance. Even more so because most people are ignorant of the facts, history, background etc. or are just either uninterested or have already a biased hostile opinion which nothing will distract them from. Even we ourselves contributed quite a bit to the wrong terminology which took roots in world’s opinion and by not opposing, reject the many misconception, fake narratives, politically motivated fraudulent inventions etc.
May is speaking from a Gentile’s point of view about a second-person Jewish homeland. The Balfour wasn’t debated at a time when Zionism was not the will of the world’s Jews. 1789 Kiwis died Gaza 1917 but Israel spits in their faces 2016 by declaring war upon New Zealand in sttelement dispute.
MM Do you enjoy semantic-alphabet soup or do you prefer toasted hogwash?
1) Even if your inference that World Jewry is not Zionist were correct, so what? Israel is a Sovereign Nation, not a “second-person homeland”!
2) Are you inventing the notion that the unfortunate 1789 Kiwis who died in Gaza in 1917 during Allenby’s campaign were fighting for said “second-person Jewish homeland”?
3) Your suggestion that Israel has spit in their faces is a very poor sleight of hand to distract attention away from the actual issues here.