Dr. Suleiman Abu Sitta: The Palestinian issue has returned to its basic roots, which are the direct conflict with the Israeli occupation

Hatim Abdel Qader: The Balfour Declaration is the cornerstone that enabled Israel to commit massacres and violations against the Palestinian people

Dr. Rifat Sayed Ahmed: The resistance is steadfast and will win if it can prevent Israel from achieving its strategic goals of displacement and division

Dr. Saleh Abdel Jawad: The historical injustice that happened in the past is being repeated today in a more horrific way as a result of the unipolar world order.

Jawdat Manna: New alliances led by Russia, China, Iran and Turkey will lead to an inevitable change in the management of international conflicts

Dr. Abdul Rahim Jamous: Legal complaints must be filed against Britain and Israel to hold them accountable for their crimes against the Palestinian people

The 107th anniversary of the infamous Balfour Declaration coincides with the war of extermination waged by the occupying state on the Gaza Strip, killing more than 150,000 martyrs and wounded, and causing almost complete destruction of the Gaza Strip, which led to turning more than two million Palestinian citizens into displaced and homeless people, searching for salvation with their lives, and for what keeps them alive, such as food and water.

This unprecedented Israeli aggression in its brutality was tried by the occupying state to justify it under the pretext of the attack of October 7, 2023, in a desperate attempt to promote the narrative that the conflict began with that attack launched by the Palestinian resistance on that day and not 76 years ago. Many hypocritical countries in the world, especially the old colonial countries, have adopted this narrative, ignoring the reality of the oppression and injustice that the Palestinian people have been living for nearly a century, especially the people of the Gaza Strip who have been living a life of misery and suffering for seventeen years due to the siege imposed on them.

The anniversary of the Balfour Declaration comes to remind the world that the conflict in Palestine began when this promise was given by “those who do not own to those who do not deserve,” as a culmination of colonial ambitions that established a racist colonial entity on the land of Palestine, at the expense of the Palestinian people, their land, and their existence.

The Palestinian issue is the root of the regional conflict

Writer and political analyst Dr. Suleiman Abu Sitta said in an interview with “I” on the occasion of the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration: The Palestinian issue has returned to its basic roots, which are the direct conflict with the Israeli occupation.

Abu Sitta pointed out that the high prices paid by the Palestinian people, especially in light of what he described as the "criminal war of extermination" in Gaza, have begun to highlight the continuation of the Palestinian cause as the root of the regional conflict, as security cannot be achieved in this vital region without stopping the occupation's attacks.

Abu Sitta added: "The recent events, which began in Gaza on October 7, have gone beyond the borders of the Strip and moved to Lebanon, bringing the region closer to an open regional war, which could lead to the disruption of navigation and threaten vital interests of the West, such as oil transportation."

He pointed out that these conditions prompted the United States to redirect its focus towards the Middle East at the expense of major international issues such as the Taiwan and Ukraine issues.

He added: In light of the ongoing massacres committed by the occupation in Gaza, Israel has not yet been able to resolve the conflict, but rather finds itself facing a long war of attrition, whether in Gaza or Lebanon. According to recent estimates, it has lost twenty soldiers in Gaza, most of them from the elite brigades, in addition to sixty soldiers in other confrontations.

The goal is to change the political and geographical structure of the Gaza Strip.

In another context, Abu Sitta pointed out the major challenges currently facing the Palestinian people, as the occupation seeks to change the political and geographical structure of the Gaza Strip, which is evident in the harsh living conditions faced by the citizens there.

He said: "The Palestinian people, despite their steadfastness and the qualitative resistance operations carried out from time to time, still suffer from a lack of effective support to confront the ongoing genocide."

He explained that this reality raises crucial questions about the Palestinians' ability to defend themselves, especially if the occupation government, led by the extreme right-wing movements such as Smotrich and Ben Gvir, moves to expand the circle of violence towards the West Bank and the interior.

Abu Sitta also pointed out that the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration comes this year amid a state of official Arab inability to confront the ongoing genocide against the Palestinians, which could ignite popular Arab anger that could develop into a movement similar to the Arab Spring.

The region is heading towards a long war.

He added: "The current indicators point to the escalation of Arab popular anger towards these conditions, as we witnessed in limited protests in Jordan, but they may be an indicator of broader anger to come."

As for the outcome of the conflict, Abu Sitta believes that the region is heading towards a long war that could extend to the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Palestinian interior, as a result of the Netanyahu government’s insistence on “resolving the conflict” with the axis of resistance. Netanyahu has stated that his goal is to “change the shape of the region and eliminate Hamas,” something that seems difficult to achieve in light of the current confrontation.

Abu Sitta stressed the necessity for the Palestinians to hasten to regain their strength, strengthen their unity, and engage in a comprehensive confrontation with the occupation, to pressure the occupation to stop its aggression by strengthening resistance action everywhere, because the Palestinians will pay the increasing price in all cases, whether they initiate confrontation or remain in the waiting column.

The disastrous repercussions of the Balfour Declaration

In turn, Hatem Abdel Qader, Secretary-General of the Islamic Christian Commission for the Defense of Jerusalem and Holy Sites, confirmed in a statement to “I” that “the 107th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration reminds us of the catastrophic repercussions that continue to affect the Palestinian people.”

Abdul Qader pointed out that the Balfour Declaration, by which Britain granted Palestinian land to the Zionist movement, represents the beginning of the catastrophes that the Palestinians were subjected to, as successive Palestinian generations witnessed continuous tragedies of displacement, killing and destruction.

Abdul Qader explained that what the Palestinian people are facing today, in light of the war of genocide in Gaza, comes with the support and cover of Western countries, most notably Britain, which he believes bears legal, historical and moral responsibility for the Palestinian suffering that has continued for more than a hundred years.

He added, "The Balfour Declaration is the cornerstone that enabled Israel to commit massacres and violations against the Palestinian people in all their components, and contributed to uprooting them from their land and eliminating their right to exist."

Britain must admit responsibility for this “historic crime”

Abdul Qader called on Britain to fully acknowledge this "historical crime," stressing the need for it to apologize to the Palestinian people for the material and moral damages they suffered as a result of this ominous promise.

He stressed that Britain's duty also extends to supporting the rights of the Palestinians by recognizing the State of Palestine and working to restore the Palestinian people's legitimate rights on their land.

Speaking about the catastrophic circumstances that the Palestinians are currently going through, Abdel Qader pointed out that the passage of 107 years since the Balfour Declaration, under the current conditions, will not push the Palestinian people to surrender or raise the white flag in the face of the Israeli occupation.

He said: "Despite the difficult times and great challenges, we have the determination and will to adhere to our legitimate national rights, foremost of which is the establishment of our Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital."

Abdul Qader stressed that Israeli crimes and violations will not deter the Palestinians from continuing the struggle to regain their full rights.

A regional war led by America and Israel against Arabs and Muslims

For his part, Egyptian strategic expert Dr. Rifat Sayed Ahmed said: This anniversary comes in the midst of a new war with a different character in light of the current escalation in Gaza.

He added: This Israeli war on the Palestinians goes beyond being a local conflict, but rather is a "regional war" led by the United States and Israel against the Arab peoples and Islamic countries.

He explained that the conflict today is not limited to the confrontation between the Palestinians and the Israelis, but that the United States is the main party in this war, as it exerts pressure and uses its modern technologies to strike the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance, specifically by targeting Hezbollah sites and its leaders. In his view, this is an "American-Arab round" and not just an Israeli-Arab confrontation.

He pointed out that the world is witnessing a new fascism led by Israel, where difficult choices are imposed on the Palestinian people: "Either they live in humiliation, or are displaced, or are killed." He also expressed his concern about the total collapse of the global order, considering that this order has become completely biased in favor of Israel thanks to the Western alliance led by the United States.

Despite this, Ahmed sees a glimmer of hope for the future. He asserts that the resistance is still steadfast, and that it will win if it can prevent Israel from achieving its strategic goals, such as displacement and partition.

He also sees Hezbollah's continuation, despite the blows it has suffered, as a victory for the resistance as a whole, in addition to the Palestinian people's continuation of their resistance, which has sent the Israelis into shelters.

Ahmed called on the Arab peoples and their armies to move to support the Palestinians, stressing that patience and steadfastness are the keys to the coming victory, and that failure to achieve Israeli goals is a defeat in itself.

The international system has been flawed from the start.

Historian and political science professor, Professor Saleh Abdel Jawad, believes that the problem is that the international system has had flawed standards since the beginning, and that there has never been a period in which the values of justice and democracy prevailed in the world.

He pointed out that "the directed media, which is controlled by Western colonial capitalism, has succeeded in influencing us and deceiving us that there is a kind of justice."

Abdul Jawad stressed that the Balfour Declaration itself, which was issued 107 years ago, is evidence of the injustice of the past, as Britain, the country that has no right to Palestine, gave Palestine to the Jews without right.

He pointed out that the historical injustice that occurred in the past is being repeated today, albeit in a more horrific manner, as a result of the global system after 1990 becoming unipolar.

He stressed that "what is happening today in terms of American and international support for Israel is not only related to political interests, but also to Israel's success, from his point of view, in penetrating the world and influencing the leaderships of many countries, including, unfortunately, a superpower such as the United States, Britain, France, or Germany."

Abdul Jawad stressed that the real hope is that part of the international system that is currently in the process of formation will respond to the suffering of the Palestinian people, stressing the need to rely on the Palestinian people’s own efforts, which is what is happening in practice.

Formation of economic interests and distribution of influence

In turn, Jawdat Manna, coordinator of the International Campaign to Defend Jerusalem, said: The Balfour Declaration had repercussions that began with the British colonial forces launching a wide-scale campaign of arrests among the Palestinian people, and imposing a ban on their possession of weapons. It is natural for the Palestinian people to take the initiative to resist the British army to defend the homeland.

He explained that the promise was not issued by chance, but was preceded by events that left their mark on European countries as a result of the formation of economic interests and the distribution of influence of major countries around the world.

He said: “In the midst of the struggle for influence between the European countries, the Zionist movement began to practice practices that focused on Germany, and had an impact on the nature of German economic, social and political life. The Jews gained influence that led to the growth of anti-Jewish sentiment that extended to European countries, where Germany experienced suspicious events that preceded World War II, and as a result of which the Holocaust occurred.”

He pointed out that "it is not possible to separate the Zionist ambitions from the British and European desires to get rid of the Jews and transfer them to settle in Palestine, and this partnership will remain an important element in the process of settling the Jews and occupying Palestine from the river to the sea after the aggression of June 5."

Manaa stated that, “With the passage of time, the Palestinian people mobilized their forces, and the Palestine Liberation Organization led their legitimate struggle, in accordance with the United Nations resolutions that stipulated the necessity of establishing a Palestinian state on part of the land of Palestine, in conjunction with the partition resolution.”

Resistance crowned with the Battle of the Flood of Al-Aqsa

Manaa stressed that the continuous attacks on worshipers, the storming of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the daily attacks on Islamic and Christian holy sites left no room for the Palestinian people to prepare to defend their homeland. This resistance was crowned by the Battle of the Flood of Al-Aqsa, which led to a war of extermination against the Palestinian people after a malicious propaganda campaign based on lies to justify waging the largest war on the Palestinian people.

While the Israeli war of extermination against the Palestinian people continues, Manna’ sees the number of Palestinian victims increasing, resulting in the destruction of the Gaza Strip and the displacement of its citizens to homeless places after the water, oil, food and medicine were banned from two and a half million Palestinians.

He explained that "the war revealed the lack of political morality of Tel Aviv's allies, who supplied the occupation army with huge quantities of weapons that led to unprecedented destruction and the fall of an unprecedentedly large number of victims."

Waqqa: Despite US President Biden’s manipulation of words to show deceptive emotions when he pretended to pressure Israel to allow the passage of food supplies to the citizens of the Strip and not to bomb populated areas, this did not happen, but rather the opposite is true.

Manaa also criticized the positions of some European countries, such as Germany, France and Britain, which supported the Israeli aggression and considered it self-defense, ignoring the fact that these lands are occupied and that what Israel claims is a slander against the Palestinian people.

He believed that this Western moral decline was preceded by its experience in the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, where European countries imposed sanctions on Russia, thus threatening the stability of the Middle East region.

Manaa pointed out that the new alliances led by Russia in cooperation with China, Iran, Turkey and the BRICS countries will lead to an inevitable change in the management of international conflicts, and will redistribute influence among the growing powers in our contemporary world.

The ominous promise casts a heavy shadow over the Palestinian people

For his part, writer and member of the National Council, Dr. Abdul Rahim Jamous, stressed that this ominous promise, by virtue of which British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour granted the land of Palestine to the Zionist movement, still casts a heavy shadow over the Palestinian people, who are today facing the worst aggression since the Great Nakba, especially in the Gaza Strip.

Jamous described what the Palestinians are facing today as crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing committed in full view of the world, which is unable to impose a ceasefire or end the aggression.

Jamous added: "The colonial policy of Britain and America is old and renewed. It began with the Balfour Declaration in 1917, and continued in subsequent positions supporting Israeli superiority in the region, passing through American presidents such as Donald Trump and Joe Biden."

Jamous considered that British and then American colonialism represented a fixed approach that changed in its methods while its goals remained the same, which is to destroy Palestinian rights.

Jamous pointed out that the Balfour Declaration was a promise from “the one who does not own to the one who does not deserve,” and paved the way for the establishment of the Israeli colony, which represents the last colonial occupation supported by Britain and America.

The United States completes the colonial approach

He added: "Britain does not apologize for its actions, but rather takes pride in them and celebrates the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration annually. Today, the United States is completing this colonial approach by supporting Israel without limits, thus defying the most basic principles of international law."

Jamous called on Britain to officially apologize to the Palestinian people for the historical crimes that resulted from the Balfour Declaration, and to work to support the Palestinians’ rights to return, self-determination, and the establishment of an independent state.

He also stressed the need to file legal complaints against Britain and Israel to hold them accountable for the crimes committed against the Palestinian people, calling for raising cases in international judicial forums and demanding the right of the Palestinian people to resist the occupation by all possible means.

Jamous stressed that the Palestinian people, with their steadfastness and resistance, will not give up their legitimate rights, and that they will continue to demand justice and freedom, relying on the justice of their cause and their tireless efforts to restore their usurped rights.