The decision of the British government to grant land belonging to the Palestinian people to European Jewish settlers 100 years ago remains one of the most grievous crimes of colonialism committed. From it has issued generations of unremitting strife, violence, oppression, and human suffering, with Israel's continuing existence at the negation of a captive Palestinian population ongoing with no end in sight.
A truth that cannot be denied is that injustice does not only take a toll on its dehumanized victims, it also brutalizes and dehumanizes its perpetrators. Thus we can say that until the Palestinians are free Israel will never be free, with the fate of one contingent upon the fate of the other in a circular relationship that cannot be broken — if not physically then certainly morally.
Locating the suffering of the Palestinian people in history, it stands as the modern incarnation of the campaign to extirpate and eradicate from their land the indigenous peoples of North America in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the Australian aborigines around the same time.
Ensuring that the same fate does not befall the Palestinians is not only important it is necessary in the interests of the universal application of human rights and international law.
John Wight is joined by Israeli-American activist and author, Miko Peled, to discuss the injustice enshrined in the Balfour Declaration and the ongoing struggle for Palestinian human rights and liberation in the 21st century.
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