In Britain and the West Bank, two very different events are being held to commemorate Thursday’s 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.
That November 1917 declaration by the Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour declared, “His Majesty’s government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
Although its formative impact is often exaggerated, the Balfour Declaration lent important international legitimacy to the foundation of what would eventually become the state of Israel. For that reason, most Israelis celebrate the declaration and most Palestinians lament it.
That explains the divergence in how the 100th anniversary is being remembered.
In the Palestinian territories, British artist Banksy arranged a fake tea party on Wednesday to apologize for what he regards as the declaration’s immoral betrayal of the Palestinians.
As Banksy put it, “This conflict has brought so much suffering to people on all sides. It didn’t feel appropriate to celebrate the British role in it.” While Banksy’s pro-Palestinian sympathies are well-known, his tea party did not receive the kind of unanimous applause he might have expected. As the Guardian reports, protesters attended the tea party to protest what they regarded as Banksy’s cartoonish appropriation of the Palestinian plight.
In London, however, a dinner party is on the cards. On Thursday, British Prime Minister Theresa May will dine in celebration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other VIPs.
Yet not everyone is happy; the leader of Britain’s main opposition political party, Jeremy Corbyn, will stay away from the event. Well-known for his communist sympathies and passionate anti-Israeli sentiments (he once referred to Hamas and Hezbollah as his “friends”) Corbyn’s absence is rude, but unsurprising. That said, it will at least assist Netanyahu’s Shin Bet security detail in giving them one less person to watch!
Regardless, whether in Britain or Palestine, the division over Balfour is important for another reason.
Because it speaks to the anti-Israeli movement’s continuing penchant for mythology. After all, while there is joint Israeli-Palestinian responsibility for the current inertia in the peace process, anti-Israel activists continue to regard Israel as an inherently immoral actor. The most important of these myths is their claim that Israel “stole” Palestinian land via cover of others like Balfour.
The truth is more basic: Jewish settlers bought most of the land and used it to flourish. As the 1937 Peel Commission (formed to find out why the Palestinians were angry over Jewish settlement) found, the “Arab charge that the Jews have obtained too large a proportion of good land cannot be maintained, much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or swamp and uncultivated when it was purchased.”
That recording of Jewish creation of prosperity from the sand is a metaphor for what Israel has become today. It’s also a representation of what Palestine might one day become if Palestinian leaders decide to educate their children in science rather than terrorism and death.
By rejecting this history in favor of a cartoonish anti-Israeli emotionalism, Banksy, Corbyn and their compatriots are the ultimate orientalists. (As I’ve noted, Edward Said’s Orientalism is a book many on the Left pretend to have read, few have actually read, and even fewer understand).
Regardless, the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration is a good thing for a simple reason. Recognizing Jewish roots in Palestine and centuries of anti-Semitic persecution across Europe, it laid the credible foundation for what would become a great and vibrant democracy.
