95 years on from the Balfour declaration Baroness Tonge asks the government for its current assessment of the situation in Israel and Palestine.
The road to Hell, as Sam Johnson observed, is paved with good intentions: or perhaps in the world of foreign policy, with promises and charters.
In 1917 Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour wrote to Lord Rothschild, that the proposed ‘’national home for the Jewish people’ would do nothing to prejudice ‘’the civil and religious rights of non-Jewish communities in Palestine…”
Three years later, Britain was tasked with administering Palestine, in accordance with the Mandates system of the League of Nations.
The Covenant declared that: ‘for those peoples not yet able to stand by themselves..... there should be observed the principle that the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilization.’’
The League’s demise did not absolve us from this responsibility. In 1950, the International Court of Justice giving an advisory opinion on one of the former mandated countries, now under a system of ‘‘trusteeship’’, declared that ‘‘the sacred trust’’ principle still held.
In 1971 another ICJ advisory opinion declared that the concept of the sacred trust had evolved and, ’’..these developments leave little doubt that the ultimate objective..... was the self-determination and independence of the peoples concerned.’’
So 95 years after the Balfour Declaration, what civil rights do the Palestinians have and how close are they to self-determination?
The recent Russell Tribunal on Palestine heard abundant evidence that Palestinians are deprived of life through military operations and incursions, through ‘’targeted killings’’ and the use of lethal force against non-violent demonstrations. That torture, ill-treatment and administrative detention are widespread. That their rights to movement, residence, and freedom of opinion and association are severely curtailed. That in the spheres of education, health and housing, Israeli policies are severely discriminatory.
For six years now we have watched in silence, and blind to international humanitarian law, the blockade imposed upon the civilian population of Gaza. ‘‘Well-being and development’’? Gaza’s water supply and land are contaminated with pollutants that will threaten the health of people living there for generations, according to Medical Aid For Palestinians (MAP) 90 per cent of their water is unfit to drink. Babies die from typhoid and diarrhoea. Ten per cent of children under five suffer from stunting, an irreversible condition. Gazans cannot work, or farm, or fish.
And self determination? We have watched, again in silence, as for the last forty five years, Israel has colonised the Palestinian hill tops and olive groves, gradually making impossible the dream of a viable and contiguous state.
The only disagreement now is whether to describe the ‘two-state’ solution as ‘‘closed’’ or ‘’closing’’.
Sacred Trust? Not for the first time we have failed utterly to protect those most in need of our protection.
There is still just a faint hope that our government will support the Palestinians in their bid for enhanced observer status at the UN General Assembly. We will see.