Palestine threatens suit against UK over 1917 declaration

World Today

Palestinian leaders are threatening to sue the British government over a declaration it made in 1917 that led to the establishment of Israel.

CCTV’s Stephanie Freid reports.

In 1948, Jews celebrated the state’s establishment of Israel.

But Palestinians have called it a catastrophe. They have since protested the outcome and implications of statehood to date. The premise of that catastrophe, said Palestinian leaders, is grounds for a lawsuit.

“Based on this ill-omened promise, hundreds of thousands of Jews were moved from Europe and elsewhere to Palestine at the expense of our Palestinian people whose parents and grandparents had lived for thousands of years on the soil of their homeland,” Riad Malki, A Palestinian foreign minister said.

The promise refers to the Balfour Declaration: A 1917 letter from then U.K. Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur Balfour pledging Britain’s support for the establishment of a home for Jewish people in Palestine.

A hundred years after the fact, the Palestinian authority said they’ll sue Britain’s government in an international court.

Israeli leaders dismiss the threat. Meanwhile, other critics, including former British foreign secretary Malcolm Rifkind, said a lawsuit is unlikely and would have no legal force.