Atef Abu Saif is purveying half-truths, mixed with outright fictions. There has never in history been a Palestinian state for the British or the Zionists or anyone else to steal. Before the Mandate for Palestine, the land in question was part of the Ottoman Empire, which ceded it to the League of Nations, which awarded it to Britain for the Mandate. Atef Abu Saif twists all that into the British stealing a Palestinian state that never existed and thus could not be stolen. There weren’t even any “Palestinians” before the 1960s. Get the truth of all this in The Palestinian Delusion.
“Palestinian Culture Minister: Britain Is The One That Stole Our Country; It Must Be Brought To Trial For Its Crimes,” MEMRI, July 28, 2022:
July 24, 2022 was the 100th anniversary of the League of Nations’ issuance of the Mandate for Palestine, which authorized Britain to administer Palestine and the Transjordan. On the occasion of this anniversary, Palestinian Culture Minister ‘Atef Abu Saif published an article in the Al-Ayyam daily that was sharply critical of Britain, stating that, other than the Zionist movement, it is the element that committed the gravest crimes against the Palestinian people.…
The following are translated excepts from his article: [1]
“With the exception of the Zionist movement and its gangs, which became a state, it can perhaps be said that no country or force has committed graver crimes against our [Palestinian] people than Britain has. Furthermore, one of the main mistakes [we] made in the Palestinian national struggle was that we did not take Britain to court for its crimes against our people. True, it was the Zionist movement that murdered and expelled our people, but it did so thanks to the historically unprecedented aid it received: Britain seized our nation by the throat, forced it into the Zionists’ slaughterhouse, placed its head on the butcher’s block and handed the butcher a knife. What an evil act that was. Just as we must continue our struggle to attain freedom and win back our land and our rights, we must struggle to take Britain to court for this heinous act.
“[But] perhaps the most painful fact is that Britain was and still is the country that is most radically opposed to the rights of our people. Britain’s insolence has crossed every line. This is the country that issued the reprehensible promise [i.e., the Balfour Declaration] to kill us and kill the [Palestinian] state and hand us over, shackled, to the Zionists. [It is the country] that occupied the land for this purpose, published the notorious document known as the Mandate [for Palestine], and then strengthened the foreign settlers [i.e., the Zionists], armed them, trained them and withdrew when they were ready to butcher and expel us from our land. To this day, [Britain] refuses to recognize our political rights; in fact, it is not even willing to contemplate recognizing any of our political [rights], such as our right to a state even on 21% of the land, [although] it had a hand in stealing and destroying [this land] and in killing its owners….
“Yesterday [July 24, 2022] was the 100th anniversary of the issuance of the reprehensible Mandate for Palestine by the League of Nations. This was a reprehensible document that Britain acted to receive in order to attain the legal authority to govern Palestine, so as to encourage the Zionists to immigrate there and then hand it over, prepared and ready, to the Zionist movement, after denying every element of life to its original inhabitants and handing over the government to the new oppressors.
“This [Mandate] was the fourth satanic move that Britain took as part of robbing us of our country. Yes, Britain is the one that stole our country, along with the Zionist movement. The first [step] was the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which divided the Arab region between Britain and France, and Britain made every effort to receive Palestine, so as to implement this plan. The second step was the reprehensible Balfour Declaration, in which Britain took the liberty of giving the land to the foreigners. The third was the occupation of the country by [the British] General Allenby, who did this in order to prepare the country for the Zionists. The fourth was attaining international authorization to prepare the country and then hand it over to the foreign settlers, [the step] known as [the issuance of] the Mandate [for Palestine]. And finally, of course, there was the partition resolution, and the surrender of the territory to the foreigners….
