United Nations rewrites Balfour Declaration parliamentary debate
An official United Nations document published by the Division for Palestinian Rights of the United Nations Secretariat contains a deliberately altered record of a 1922 parliamentary House of Lords debate on the Balfour Declaration…writes David Singer.The Balfour Declaration – dated 2 November 1917 – called for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people – it being clearly understood that nothing would be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
The Balfour Declaration was subsequently written into international law after being incorporated into the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine on 24 July 1922.
The upcoming centenary of the Balfour Declaration has prompted a concerted international campaign calling on the British Government to apologise for another Government’s decision taken 100 years ago.
Baroness Anelay – Minister of State (Foreign Commonwealth Office) – told the House of Lords on 3 April 2017 that no such apology would be forthcoming.
The UN’s rewriting of Parliamentary debate records actually came to light whilst I was researching the source of a quote appearing in four articles by Stuart Littlewood provocatively headlined
- “Who will Finally Heal the “Running Sore in the East”?
- “Will the Royal Family Celebrate 100 Years of Shame by Endorsing Israel?”
- “Despicable Balfour: A story of betrayal”
- “Jeremy Corbyn: the antidote to the Blairite “virus” and Zionist snake-bite”
All four articles contained the following quote purportedly made in 1922 by a bitter opponent of the Balfour Declaration – Lord Sydenham:
“The harm done by dumping down an alien population upon an Arab country… may never be remedied… What we have done is, by concessions, not to the Jewish people but to a Zionist extreme section, to start a running sore in the East, and no one can tell how far that sore will extend.”
My research eventually led to a United Nations Study titled “The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: 1917-1988” – the Foreword stating:
“This study has been prepared by the Division for Palestinian Rights of the United Nations Secretariat for, and under the guidance of, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, in pursuance of General Assembly resolution 32/40 B of 2 December 1977.”
This UN Study claimed Lord Sydenham had said:
“… the harm done by dumping down an alien population upon an Arab country – Arab all around in the hinterland – may never be remedied … what we have done is, by concessions, not to the Jewish people but to a Zionist extreme section, to start a running sore in the East, and no one can tell how far that sore will extend.”
sourcing this quote to British Hansard – the official record of parliamentary debates.
However Hansard records that Lord Sydenham actually said on 21 June 1922:
“What we have done is, by concessions, not to the Jewish people but to a Zionist extreme section, to start a running sore in the East, and no one can tell how far that sore will extend.
Zionism will fail, the experiment to which the noble Earl referred will fail, but the harm done by dumping down an alien population upon an Arab country—Arab all round in the hinterland— may never be remedied.”
Deliberately rewriting Hansard raises the distinct possibility there may be other similar such instances in this UN Study. A full investigation by the United Nations Secretariat to discover the reason is urgently required.
An immediate retraction, correction and apology must be made by the UN Secretariat.
David Singer is a Sydney Lawyer and Foundation Member of the International Analysts Network
Goodonyer David and thanks.