Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today said the Palestinian refusal to recognise the Jewish people's right to a homeland is the root of the ongoing conflict in the region.
Netanyahu's remarks came a day after the Palestinians dubbed 'Balfour declaration', calling for a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, the "biggest political crime in contemporary history."
"That declaration recognised the right of the Jewish people to its own homeland in Israel," Netanyahu today said at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting.
"There is no doubt that international recognition of the Jewish people's right to its own state in its historic homeland is important; the refusal to recognise us is the root of the conflict," he asserted.
The Balfour declaration, a letter written 96 years ago on November 2 by British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Baron Rothschild, called for the establishment in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people.
The Israeli Premier said that in order for there to be peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the Palestinians needed to recognise the Jewish state, thus foregoing the right of return of Palestinian refugees, a demand that has been at the core of Palestinian national movement.
The Palestinian Ministry of Information issued a statement saying the Palestinian people were "paying the price of the biggest political crime in contemporary history," and that the declaration was "a mark of shame on humanity", The Saudi Gazette reported yesterday on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.
The ministry reportedly said that the declaration "began the Zionists' process of ethnically cleansing the Palestinians from their homeland, which continues until today."
"Britain and the entire world must recognise the usurped Palestinian rights because everything that has befallen Palestine -- it's partition, the aggression, the suppression, the settlements, the arrests, the separation wall, the siege on Gaza, and the millions of Palestinians living in exile -- was made possible because of the Balfour Declaration," the ministry was quoted as saying.
The Palestinian Ministry of Information's English website on Thursday wrote that the Balfour Declaration "continues to serve as the basis for a racial discrimination system forcibly inflicted on Palestine and the Palestinians putting former South Africa Apartheid regime to shame".
