Thousands take to London streets over tragic upshots of Balfour pledge

Thousands of people marched through London on Saturday to call on Britain to apologize for the Balfour Declaration.

Organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, protesters marched through the heart of London from outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square to Parliament Square in Westminster.

Head of the Palestine Initiative Mustafa al-Barghouti and the Palestinian Ambassador to London, Emmannuel Hasasian, were in attendance.
Some of the signs held at the London march included hundreds of “Free Palestine” placards and hand-written leaflets lashing out at the Balfour pledge.

The demonstration came as UK Prime Minister Theresa May this week celebrated the centenary of the controversial 1917 document which paved the way for the creation of the Israeli entity on occupied Palestinian land.
The Balfour Declaration, which is dated 7 November 1917, is a 67-word letter from Balfour, the foreign secretary of David Lloyd George’s British government, to Walter Rothschild, the leader of the British Jewish community, which is considered by Zionists to indicate British support for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.

While Israel reveres Arthur Balfour, naming streets and a Tel Aviv school after him, Palestinians decry his declaration as a promise by Britain to hand over land it did not own, which led to the displacement of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland.