(Times of Israel) Sam Hailes - On the 95th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, former Israeli ambassador to the UN Dore Gold addressed the Royal United Services Institute, the UK's oldest military think tank located in Whitehall. He noted three elements to the modern-day verbal war against Israel: accusations of war crimes, apartheid, and colonialism. "You can disprove pretty easily the thesis of war crimes because ultimately these false charges are shown to have been baseless. You can disprove the apartheid charge because all you have to do is visit Israel." Dr. Gold noted that the Balfour Declaration formed part of the treaty at Sevres which not only allowed the Jewish state to emerge, but gave independence to many Arab states such as Jordon, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. Furthermore, the Balfour Declaration did not invent Jewish rights but rather recognized a preexisting Jewish right to the land. "Balfour and his generation back then knew the Jews were a people who lived in that land. They had roots in the land." "Anyone looking at history over the last couple of centuries would know that Jews had been streaming back to their historical homeland for a very long time." "We're not talking about people from overseas who have no connection with the land. We're talking about a Jewish people who were intimately connected with their ancestral homeland, but this is precisely what those who want to delegitimize Israel want you to forget."
2012-11-12 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive