By David Singer ——Bio and Archives--August 18, 2016
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"We are working to open up an international criminal case for the crime which they [Britain] committed against our nation--from the days of the British Mandate all the way to the massacre which was carried out against us from 1948 onwards ... ... With the commemoration of 100 years since this historic massacre, and following the continuity of this tragedy, we request that the Secretary General of the Arab League assist us in prosecuting the British government for publishing the Balfour Declaration which caused this catastrophe against the Palestinian people."The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO)--from its founding in 1964--had labelled the Balfour Declaration a "fraud" - revising this position in 1968 by claiming it was "deemed null and void." Such unsubstantiated assertions of British fraud and illegality are supposedly now to be legally challenged--but can Abbas be taken seriously? Abbas has not similarly threatened France - although France's Secretary General For Foreign Affairs - Jules Cambon--informed Nahum Sokolow on 4 June 1917--5 months before the Balfour Declaration:
"You were good enough to present the project to which you are devoting your efforts, which has for its object the development of Jewish colonization in Palestine. You consider that, circumstances permitting, and the independence of the Holy Places being safeguarded on the other hand, it would be a deed of justice and of reparation to assist, by the protection of the Allied Powers, in the renaissance of the Jewish nationality in that Land from which the people of Israel were exiled so many centuries ago. The French Government, which entered this present war to defend a people wrongfully attacked, and which continues the struggle to assure the victory of right over might, can but feel sympathy for your cause, the triumph of which is bound up with that of the Allies. I am happy to give you herewith such assurance."Abbas is not proposing to sue all 51 member States of the League of Nations who unanimously adopted and incorporated the Balfour Declaration in the Mandate for Palestine--when calling for the "reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in Palestine".
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David Singer is an Australian Lawyer, a Foundation Member of the International Analyst Network and Convenor of Jordan is Palestine International—an organization calling for sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza to be allocated between Israel and Jordan as the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine. Previous articles written by him can be found at: jordanispalestine.blogspot.com