Arab League supports PA plan to sue Britain

The Arab League yesterday announced its support for the Palestinian Authority’s intention to sue Britain over the 1917 Balfour Declaration which paved the way for the creation of Israel on Palestinian land.

Assistant Secretary-General for Palestine and occupied Arab lands at the Arab League Saeed Abu Ali told reporters: “The infamous Balfour Declaration is a great crime against the Palestinian people; a crime that should not fall on statute of limitation even after the passage of a hundred years.”

Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki, who spoke on behalf of PA President Mahmoud Abbas at the 27th Arab League Summit in Nouakchott, Mauritania, last week, called on the organisation to help prepare a legal file against Britain over the 1917 Balfour Declaration to be submitted before an international court.

“With the coming of this painful anniversary, the passing of approximately 100 years since the historic massacre of our land and our people’s fates, and with the continuation of this catastrophe without a resolution, we call on the secretariat general of the Arab League to support us in preparing a legal file to raise against the British government for issuing the Balfour Declaration and thereafter implementing it as a mandatory authority,” he said.

Abu Ali also denounced the Israeli decision to build more settlement units in the West Bank and stressed the need to “take practical and immediate steps to halt Israel’s settlement policy, mainly in Jerusalem, as well as the policy of demolishing Palestinians houses, the most recent was the demolition of 11 houses in the town of Qalandia in East Jerusalem.”

Last week, Israel announced a plan to build 770 housing units in the settlement of Gilo, northwest of occupied Bethlehem, and 323 units in occupied East Jerusalem as well as 42 housing units in the settlement of Kiryat Arba in occupied Hebron.