Last Saturday, November 4th, 2024, we commemorated the 107th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration (November 2nd, 1917), which bestowed a land, it did not possess, upon a people scattered among all nations. This series of articles has previously discussed this promise, the Palestinian and Arab rejection of it, and the subsequent protests, strikes, and calls for its revocation. Here, I would like to recall the words of Dr. Adnan Bader, the general coordinator of the Lebanese Popular Conference, on this painful anniversary. He states that this promise was preceded by a number of events that paved the way for it, including; the article titled, “the Great Restoration” written by the legal advisor to the British royal court, Henry, and published in 1621. Then, in 1897, the Zionist Congress convened by Theodor Herzl in Switzerland. The 1907 Campbell-Bannerman Conference followed, and a decade later came the infamous Balfour Declaration. Britain, with the support of France, undertook the task of implementing this promise, which culminated in the catastrophe of the establishment of the Israeli entity on May 15, 1948. It is worth noting that at that time, all colonists and settlers possessed less than 5% of the total Palestinian national land.
The previous article discussed the period between 1920 and 1948, and the role of the British High Commissioners in administering ‘Palestine’ to fulfill the dream of a Jewish homeland, issuing laws that facilitated Jewish immigration to ‘Palestine’, and allowing Jews to own Palestinian land and obtain its citizenship. However, the Palestinian efforts to resist the seizure of their lands did not cease, with demonstrations culminating in the Palestinian’s Civil Disobedience Movement. The disobedience was ended in 1936 after calls from Arab kings and leaders. Afterwards, the “Great Arab Revolt” erupted. There has always been a major dispute between Muslims and Jews over al-Buraq Wall of the Noble Sanctuary, which Muslims believe is linked to the events of the “Night Journey and Ascension” and call it the “al-Buraq Wall”, while Jews believe it is the last remnant of the temple which Herod the Great had begun to renovate and expand in the eighteenth year of his reign (20 BCE), and was completed in 64 CE by Herod Agrippa, according to the Jewish historian Josephus, and Jews call it the “Wailing Wall”, where they weep and mourn the destruction of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem. Thus, the wall became a cause of intense conflict between Muslims and Jews, leading to the formation of an arbitration committee by Britain, to mediate the dispute and calm the disturbances; and the committee ruled in favor of the Muslims’ right to own all the area surrounding the al-Buraq Wall of the sanctuary, considering it an Islamic endowment.
Despite this ruling, the dispute did not come to an end but rather was intensified! Especially after Jews gathered in large numbers at the Wall during the Jewish Feast of Atonement in 1928, prepared the site for their rituals, blew the shofar, and raised images of the Temple. This sparked anger throughout Palestine. The British intervened to calm the situation, and the British commission ruled that the Muslims owned the al-Buraq Wall and its surroundings. In August 1929, Jews demonstrated and marched through the streets of al-Quds until they reached the vicinity of the Wall, where they raised their flag. Al-Quds reported: ‘The following day, which was a Friday, was the anniversary of the Prophet’s birthday. Muslims at al-Quds and nearby areas flocked to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and marched in a demonstration towards the disputed Wall. There, the preacher of the Al-Aqsa Mosque delivered a sermon that inflamed the crowd, and they burned some of the Jews’ belongings at the Wall.
In the following month, a quarrel broke out between a Muslim and a Jewish young man, and the situation became more complicated with the death of the Jewish young man, turning his funeral into a Zionist political demonstration. News spread in the villages surrounding al-Quds that the Jews intended to attack the al-Buraq Wall. Muslims gathered on Friday morning, September 23, and attacked Jewish neighborhoods. The harvest of the Buraq Uprising was 116 Arab martyrs, 133 Zionist dead, and 339 wounded Jews and 232 wounded Muslims. In 1930, the League of Nations formed an international commission to rule on the dispute between Muslims and Jews over the ownership of al-BuraqWall,
and… the story of al-Quds continues, for stories in Beautiful Egypt never end
Bishop Ermia
President of the Coptic Orthodox Cultural Center
