British Prime Minister Theresa May will warn that criticism of Israel should never be used as an excuse to hate Jews, when she speaks in London to mark the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.
Mrs. May is currently hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the capital. The two will join hundreds of others at a gala celebration Thursday night marking 100 years since Britain formally declared its support for a Jewish national home in Palestine through the signing of the Balfour Declaration.
That document was the first international recognition by a world power of the right of the Jewish people to a national home in their ancestral land and formed the basis of Britain’s Mandate for Palestine in 1920.
An excerpt from Mrs. May’s speech made available to the British media reads, in part:
Today [there prevails] a new and pernicious form of anti-Semitism which uses criticism of the actions of the Israeli government as a despicable justification for questioning the very right of Israel to exist.
This is abhorrent and we will not stand for it.
Criticizing the government of Israel is never – and can never be – an excuse for hatred against the Jewish people – any more than criticizing the British government would be an excuse for hatred against the British people.
Put simply, there can be no excuses for any kind of hatred towards the Jewish people. There never have been – and there never will be.
Mrs. May has long spoken of her pride in the role that the UK played in the establishemnt of the modern Jewish State of Israel.
As Breitbart Jerusalem reported, speaking on the eve of the Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year celebration, Mrs. May told members of the Jewish community from business, the arts, politics, public services and charities about her plans to fight anti-Semitism as well as celebrate this year’s centenary of the signing of the Balfour Declaration:
The Palestinian Return Center rights group has called for the UK to apologize for the Balfour Declaration and pay reparations to those it says are affected by it.
In February, the group launched a petition on the British Parliament website calling on Britain to “openly apologise to the Palestinian people for issuing the Balfour Declaration. The colonial policy of Britain between 1917-1948 led to mass displacement of the Palestinian nation.”
British Cabinet Minister Sajid Javid has personally given his assurance that an apology will never be forthcoming. He made that commitment while meeting a visiting World Jewish Congress delegation in Westminster. The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government stated:
Someone said we should apologize for the declaration, to say it was an error of judgment. Of course that’s not going to happen. To apologize for the Balfour Declaration would be to apologize for the existence of Israel and to question its right to exist.
Palestinians are planning protests on Thursday in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, and pro-Palestinian campaigners have called for a mass rally in London at the weekend.
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