London has always been in the camp of Israel from the "original sin" of 1917 until the British government recently adopted a controversial definition of "anti-Semitism" by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
This was mentioned in a long article on the British Middle East Eye site, a historian and former professor of international relations at the University of Oxford, the British-Israeli Avi Shlaim, an honorary fellow at St. Anthony's College in England, who is mainly interested in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Shlaim says the "original sin" was the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which promised to support the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" on the condition that nothing would be done "to harm the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities present in Palestine."
At that time, Arabs constituted 90% of the population of Palestine, and Jews constituted less than 10%.
Colonial document
Thus the Declaration was a classic colonial document, granting the right to national self-determination to a small minority, and depriving the majority of it.
To add insult to injury, the declaration referred to 90% of the country's population as “non-Jewish communities in Palestine,” placing them in an inferior position.
In the end, Britain fulfilled its promise to the Zionists by helping the "national home" develop into a Jewish state, but it betrayed its pledge to the Palestinians.
Britain's betrayal led to the outbreak of the Great Palestinian Revolt between 1936 and 1939, and a nationalist uprising demanded Arab independence and an end to the open policy of Jewish immigration and the purchase of land, but the revolution was brutally and brutally suppressed by the British army and police.
In the process of crushing the intifada, Britain broke the backbone of the Palestinian national movement, and seriously weakened the Palestinians.
On the other hand, the Zionist groups strengthened, as the two sides moved relentlessly to the final confrontation.
Palestine was not thus lost in the late 1940s as is commonly believed. It was lost in the late 1930s, as a result of Britain's brutal crushing of Palestinian resistance and its support for Jewish paramilitary groups.
Racism against Arabs
The presence of a racist current in the United Kingdom hostile to the Arabs had affected the way Britain completely dealt with the mandate over Palestine.
In 1937, Winston Churchill, who would later become Prime Minister, said, "I do not agree that the dog in the barn has the ultimate right to the barn even though he may have been there for a very long time. I do not acknowledge that right."
He added, "I do not admit, for example, that a fatal mistake has been committed against American Indians in America or blacks in Australia. I do not acknowledge that a mistake has been made towards these people through the fact that a stronger, higher, and wiser race is ... He came and replaced them. "
Therefore, the writer says: One of the protesters in the "Black Lives Matter" protests was right when, in June 2020, he sprayed graffiti on a Churchill statue in London's Parliament Square to add the phrase "he was racist." Churchill looked at Arabs with disdain, but that is not Quite surprisingly, racism usually goes hand in hand with colonialism.
As the British Mandate for Palestine drew to a harsh end, London continued its anti-Palestinian stance.
When the United Nations voted in November 1947 to divide Palestine - under the mandate - into two states, Britain formally adopted a neutral position, but behind the scenes it worked to abort the birth of a Palestinian state.
Shameful legacy
According to the author, the British Conservative Party and its leaders are the bearers of this shameful legacy of unconditional British support for Israel, and indifference to Palestinian rights.
The last 3 leaders of the Conservative Party were unreservedly supportive of the State of Israel.
Former Prime Minister David Cameron described himself as a "passionate friend" of Israel, insisting that nothing could break that friendship, and former Prime Minister Theresa May reminded her fans that Britain was entering a "special time" on the centenary of the Balfour Declaration.
May went on to issue a completely one-sided verdict on this colonial document, saying, "It is one of the most important messages in history."
On the other hand, there was no mention of Britain’s failure to uphold even the minimal rights of the Palestinians.
Current Prime Minister Boris Johnson has a slightly more accurate view of Britain's record as a colonial power in Palestine.
In his 2014 book - On Churchill - he described the Balfour Declaration as "tragically bizarre and incoherent."
This was one of the rare examples of good judgment and historical insight on the part of Johnson.
But in 2015, on a trip to Israel as mayor of London, Johnson hailed the Balfour Declaration as "a great thing".
In October 2017, as Secretary of State, Johnson gave a debate in the House of Commons about the Balfour Declaration.
He repeated the slogan of Britain's pride in the role it played in establishing a Jewish state in Palestine.
He had a perfect opportunity to balance that with the recognition of Palestine as a state, but he turned it down repeatedly, saying the time was not right.
British promise
Arthur Balfour, Secretary of State in 1917, the author of the famous proclamation promised to support the civil and religious rights of the indigenous people of Palestine.
A century later, the House of Commons voted in October 2014 by 274 to 12 to recognize a Palestinian state, but Prime Minister Cameron ignored the non-binding vote.
Shlaim said that there was a continuous thread of moral short-sightedness, hypocrisy, double standards and British political deception in Palestine, from Balfour to Boris Johnson.
A heterogeneous society
The writer says that Israel is a very heterogeneous and deeply divided society with a wide range of opinions on all of these issues, and has a political culture characterized by fierce conflicts.
And asserts that Israel is not a democratic country.
Even within its original borders, it is a flawed democracy at best, due to discrimination on multiple levels against its Palestinian citizens.
And in all of the region under its rule, including the Occupied Palestinian Territories, as Israel is considered an ethnocracy - a political system in which one ethnic group dominates another - and the superior position of Jews in Israel was enshrined in the nation-state law of 2018, which is the official affirmation that Israel is a separate state. Racist.
The law states that the right to exercise national self-determination in Israel is "unique to the Jewish people."
It establishes Hebrew as the official language of Israel, and lowers the status of Arabic - which is widely spoken by Arab citizens in Israel, to a "special status."
Thus - according to the writer - Israel is the only member of the United Nations that perpetuates its racism in the law, and on the other hand, its friends in America and Europe intimidate critics of Israel.
It is true that, for many British-Jewish students, Israel is a vital component of their identity, yet it is useless to let Israel feature prominently in the analysis of anti-Semitism. It is a controversial country whose democratic institutions are constantly eroding, and its persecution of Palestinians attracts mounting international criticism. A ruling was recently issued paving the way for an investigation into war crimes by the International Criminal Court. Despite its claims to the contrary, Israel does not represent all Jews in the world, but only its citizens, and one-fifth of them are Palestinians.
No identification needed
Finally, the question arises: Do we need a definition of anti-Semitism in the first place, and the author answers, “My view is that we do not need that. The term anti-Semitism in itself is problematic because Arabs are Semites as well. The best in my opinion is the term racism against Jews. What we need is a code of conduct to protect All minorities, including Jews, are subject to discrimination and harassment, while protecting freedom of expression for all university members. "
"The universal right to freedom of expression is already enshrined in the UK Act under the Human Rights Act 1998, which prohibits public authorities from acting in a way that contradicts this right. The Education Act 1986 provides special protection for freedom of expression in universities. So we do not need," "More legislation. All we need is common sense and honesty in applying the existing legislation."