Amman – Palestinian poet Ibrahim Toukhan (1905-1941), referring to the British occupiers and the disasters they brought on Palestine and the Arab world, wrote: “Ever since you occupied us, the ominous omens of life – poverty, hunger, hardship, corruption – have weighed on us. In your hands the flood of their exile has overflowed, and the promises we have received have become exile.”
Fellow Palestinian poet Abd al-Rahim Mahmoud condemned both Palestinians and Arabs together, saying:
“Balfour—how was Balfour? What was his promise?
If not, was it made possible by our own decisive action?
We hurt our own hearts with our own hands,
And through us suffering came upon us. ”
we add. If the Arab states, their states, and their regimes had assumed national and historical responsibility then, and still do today, the Balfour Promise would never have seen the light of day or been realized on the ground in Palestine.
If the Arabs had confronted the Zionist project as they deserved, Palestine would not have been lost, usurped and Judaized. If the Arabs had risen up in response to the promise and the times, Palestine would not have become the “homeland of the Jews.”
The same lesson lies between “Balfour then” and “Starmer and Trump today.” Balfour’s promise would never have been carried out if the Arabs had stood together and stood up against the mass of dangers pressing in from all sides.
Between the “Balfour Promise,” the “Bush Promise,” the “Trump Promise,” and the ongoing catastrophe in Gaza, the Palestinian homeland, its legitimate and solid rights, and the very foundations of Palestinian independence are being assassinated as Arab states and international organizations fail to intervene effectively to stop the ongoing historical destruction in Gaza.