We have invited the Ambassador of Palestine in Budapest, H.E. Marie Antoinette Sedin, to share with us her Dreams for Palestine in the lecture series Dreams in Politics
It was the British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour who 101 years ago formulated a historical letter which changed the life of all Palestinians ever since. The letter on 2nd of November 1917 is known as „The first Balfour Declaration“. It laid the foundations of the state of Israel. It said: „His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people…it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine“. Today‘s British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson published an article a hundred years later in „The Telegraph“ on 29 october 2017 on his vision for Middle East peace between Israel and a new Palestinian state where he said:
„I see no contradiction in being a friend of Israel…while also being deeply moved by the suffering of those affected and dislodged by its birth…I have no doubt that the only viable solution to the conflict…is the vision of two states for two peoples“.
Is that the Palestinian dream, a Palestinian State? For Palestinians a state of their own would allow them to realise their aspirations for self-government and self-determination. The UN General Assembly Resolution 181 envisages just that: a homeland for the Palestinian people based on the border lines as they stood on June 4, 1967, the eve of the Six Day War, with equal land swaps to to reflect the national, security, and religious interests of the Jewish and Palestinian peoples.
Recent news from the Gaza strip are not good. At least 16 demonstrators were shot dead by the Israelian security forces, more than one hundred were injured – do we see the beginning of a new intifada?