ES Views: The Balfour Declaration is no cause for celebration

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A woman wearing a mask of Queen Elizabeth cuts a cake in pattern of the Great Britain flag on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration in Bethlehem, West Bank.
Dusan Vranic/AP
2 November 2017
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The Balfour Declaration may have passed its centenary mark today but this is not something that should be celebrated while one of the affected communities continues to suffer.

The 67-word letter to Lord Walter Rothschild from then foreign secretary Arthur Balfour, which supported the creation of a homeland for Jewish people in Palestine, was key to establishing the Israel we see today. However, for the current Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to say he is “proud” of what Balfour did ignores the truth — which has resulted in the continued persecution of Palestinians.

The Balfour Declaration was signed a long time ago but much has changed since then and now we must correct the mistakes that were made. Both the UK and Sweden recognised Palestine as a sovereign state; now it is time to enact the two-state solution plan that will hopefully bring peace to region.
M Richards


Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson recently described the Balfour Declaration as a “fudgerama”. David Blair, his Middle East adviser at the Foreign Office, recently said in a talk for the Historical Association that in Balfour’s time the reference to “civil and religious rights” would not have included “political rights”.

Many people believe Balfour violated the agreements made in the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence in 1916 that Arab independence would be recognised after the First World War. As it prepares to mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, what does the Government believe on this issue?
Brendan O’Brien


Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, hoped to see the day when Israel became a member of the Commonwealth and the former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill supported Israeli membership, stating that it “would be a wonderful thing”.

A fitting way to commemorate the Balfour Declaration and to honour its legacy then would be for Her Majesty’s Government, as the former mandatory power in Palestine, to issue an invitation to Israel to join the Commonwealth.
Ze’ev Portner


The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s version of the Balfour Declaration is at odds with the actual words included in the document: “It being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”.

It was a time of turmoil in 1917, with the Ottoman Empire collapsing and the distractions of the Great War, but Balfour had the support of US President Woodrow Wilson. The fact that things didn’t turn out as Balfour envisioned is just realpolitik.
Rev Dr John Cameron


Sex abuse goes far beyond celebrities

It seems that people are only willing to talk about child abuse if a celebrity is involved. In 2016, a report estimated that 58,000 children suffered some form of sexual abuse, yet this was swept under the carpet and no national newspaper has ever published these findings.

Now an actor makes an allegation against a celebrity and the whole thing explodes. Does this mean that unless you are famous, it doesn’t count? If you make sexual advances towards a 14-year-old you are guilty of indecent assault on a minor. This is child abuse not drunken debauchery, as it was reported in some places.

Coming out as gay is an egregious excuse for anyone to use as a form of defence of sexual assault and it does not exonerate you from prosecution. But what about the innocent people living under the radar who have suffered the same kind of abuse?

A victim is a victim regardless of their race, sexual orientation or occupation. We shouldn’t be segregating individuals because of their status.
Chris Wild


Luther's intervention cannot be defended

Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch’s defence of Martin Luther is as misleading as Luther’s attack on the Catholic Church was 500 years ago [Comment, October 31].

As a prominent historian MacCulloch should know better than to celebrate Luther’s claims, notably that St Paul said a person can be saved by faith “alone”, and that the doctrine of purgatory “simply does not appear in the Bible”, which it does several times.

Furthermore, MacCulloch repeats the unsubstantiated claim that clerical celibacy is responsible for the Catholic Church’s sexual scandals. In reality, the tiny proportion of Catholic clergy who have engaged in paedophilia would no more have steered clear of such scurrilous behaviour had they been married.

As Professor Eamon Duffy correctly states, Luther’s deeds led to terrible moral, cultural and societal destruction — a legacy for which we are still paying a heavy price.
Dr Gregory Slysz


Clarke and co have no place in EU talks

Other than to subvert the UK’s Brexit negotiating team, what is to be achieved by Ken Clarke, the unelected Lord Adonis and former MP Nick Clegg in their meeting with the EU’s negotiator-in-chief Michel Barnier?

Third-party interference would not be allowed in any other negotiations, but such is this triumvirate’s devotion to the EU project that they seem determined to do all they can to put a spanner in the works.
Paul Lebby


Both Labour and Tories are divided

Shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer’s hypocrisy is astounding [Letters, October 31]. He berates the Government over apparent infighting on Brexit, yet ignores the fact that, contrary to Labour’s official line, shadow trade secretary Barry Gardiner states that the UK must leave both the single market and the customs union. Both Labour and the Tories are split. Starmer should not pretend otherwise.
Howard Ricklow


Politics is about prinicples not age

These days Tony Blair and David Cameron are deemed to be “old” but both were only 43 when they became Prime Minister. Age is irrelevant, it’s what politicians stand for that counts.
Nick Fossitt

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Froome is given too little credit

Edward Miller [Letters, October 31] says Lewis Hamilton is Britain’s greatest-ever sportsman but I would suggest that title belongs to cyclist Chris Froome, who has won the Tour de France four times.

During the Tour, Froome is in the saddle for 84 hours, rides more than 3,500km and climbs 60,000m — the same as riding from sea level to the top of Mount Everest six times. He deserves more praise.
Patrick Burke

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