AIWAA – Against Imperialist Wars in Africa and Asia – are holding a vigil to commemorate imperialism’s designs on Palestine on:
Saturday 19th November between 11am and 1.30pm.
This vigil is being held at this time because November was the month when two of the defining documents about Palestine were announced: the infamous Balfour Declaration 1917 and the UN Security Council vote in 1947. The effects of these two documents manifest themselves today in wars, dispossession, ethnic cleansing and political double standards.
The vigil is to take place outside Marks and Spencers (High Street, central Birmingham, nr Bull).
Please find the time to come along and show your support for Palestine.
Palestine-November: 1917 & 1947
Currently Palestine is occupied, colonised and under siege.
It’s people disenfranchised, ethnically cleansed and mostly homeless.
However, the plight of Palestine can be traced back to two-Novembers’: firstly, November 1917 and secondly, November 1947.
In November 1917, the British Government issued the ‘Balfour Declaration’ promising a “Jewish National Home” in Palestine. This guaranteed Zionist settlements to flourish.
Lord Balfour, the British foreign secretary, was committed to denying and disenfranchising the indigenous Palestinians their political rights: Palestinians were not allowed to have any say about the zionist colonial settlers.
In 1917, the Zionist numbered less than 5% of Palestine, under the British occupation this increased to well over 30% in the 1940’s.
Between 1936-1939 British and Zionist forces crushed the first national Palestinian uprising against the implementation of the Balfour Declaration.
In November 1947, the recently founded United Nations Organisation, without consulting the indigenous Palestinian population, partitioned Palestine into two.
With the Palestinians still reeling from the British repression of the late 1930’s and the Zionist forces fully trained, this eventually led to the massive Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948.
By the end 1948, 750,000 Palestinians were violently dispossessed from their ancestral homes and have been homeless since. At least 400 villages were literally wiped off the face of the earth. This event is known as the ‘Nakba’ (catastrophe).
The United Nations security council passed a resolution (194) at the end of 1948 which, resolved “that the refugees wishing to return to their homes…should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which…should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.”This resolution like countless others continues to be breached by the Zionist state of Israel.
More so, a Palestinian continues to be denied his/her right to return to his/her ancestral home, yet if you or I were to convert to Judaism tomorrow, a “right of return” to Israel is guaranteed.
What can I do to help?
Please join AIWAA’s (www.aiwaa.net) campaigns to prevent current and future wars in Africa and Asia.
Also write to your MP/MEP voicing your opposition to our government’s stand in abstaining in the UN vote for the Palestinian bid for statehood.
