Palestinierna fäster större vikt vid Balfourdeklarationen än Israel

HAD THERE BEEN NO BALFOUR DECLARATION, THE PA WOULD HAVE HAD TO INVENT IT (Itamar Marcus PMW/Jerusalem Post)
Den palestinska historieförfalskningen behöver Balfourdeklarationen för att få en startpunkt för judarnas kolonisering av deras land.

Why is the  Balfour Declaration anniversary so much more important for Palestinians than it is for Israelis?
Itamar Marcus of  Palestinian Media Watch answers this in an op-ed in today's Jerusalem Post, and explains that it is so important for Palestinians that "had their been no Balfour Declaration, the PA would have had to invent it."

Every year, the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration passes by quietly in Israel with hardly any notice. Only this year it is being noted and celebrated because it is the 100th anniversary.

However this is not true of the Palestinian Authority. Ever since Palestinian Media Watch has been monitoring the PA, the date of the Balfour Declaration was among the most important days on the PA calendar. Each year, PA schools would have special sessions discussing Balfour. In 2011, for example, the PA organized a letter writing campaign from schoolchildren to the Queen of England "to mark the 94th anniversary of the cursed Balfour promise." [Official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 3, 2011]

Why is it that Israelis, who are the direct beneficiaries of the Balfour Declaration, have been ignoring it, while for Palestinians it is so important?

For Israelis the Balfour Declaration was just one step in a series of significant events that had started decades before Balfour and continued after him, all contributing to the Jewish people's return to the Land of Israel. The first wave of immigrants started in 1882, 35 years before Balfour's declaration and the first Zionist Congress was in 1897. Israelis today see the return to their land as something so normal and inevitable that no single event except for the declaration of statehood itself is regularly celebrated.

But why does the PA focus on Balfour? They should be mourning the first Aliyah in 1882 or the first Zionist Congress in 1897, more than the Balfour Declaration which was Britain's response to an already active Zionist movement.

For the PA, the Balfour Declaration is a necessary component of the Palestinian narrative. The two foundations of Palestinian ideology, both fictitious, are that a Palestinian nation existed for thousands of years and that there never had been a Jewish presence in the Land of Israel. But this left one problem. The PA needed to explain to its people why millions of Jews had immigrated from Europe and all over the world, if they had no connection to the land.

The PA's answer is colonialism and Balfour is the "proof." ...