London rejects Palestinian anti-Israel ad campaign
Palestinian delegation in London attempts to launch campaign claiming the Balfour Declaration brought about disaster for the Palestinian people in the form of the Jewish state, but the campaign is rejected by TfL.
After British Prime Minister Theresa May refused the Palestinians' demand for the United Kingdom to apologize for the Balfour Declaration, the London municipality rejected an anti-Israel campaign claiming the Balfour Declaration was "the harbinger of the Palestinian disaster."
The Balfour Declaration was a document signed in November 2, 1917, by then-British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour, which declared Britain would "view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."
In preparation for the 100th anniversary of the historic declaration, the Palestinian delegation in London launched an accusatory campaign according to which "the declaration helped establish the State of Israel and led to the Palestinian disaster."
The campaign includes posters with photographs of what is described as "the peaceful life of the Arab population in Palestine" before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, alongside photographs taken after the establishment of Israel that purport to show the "destruction and bereavement among the Palestinian people."
The Palestinians planned to hang the posters at London Underground stations, where hundreds of thousands of people pass every day.
But Transport for London (TfL), the authority responsible for the transport system in Greater London, refused to allow the hanging of the posters on the grounds that the ads "did not comply fully with our guidelines."
These guidelines bar "images or messages which relate to matters of public controversy or sensitivity."
"Palestinian history is a censored history," Manuel Hassassian, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, claimed. "There has been a 100-year-long cover-up of the British government’s broken promise, in the Balfour declaration, to safeguard the rights of the Palestinians when it gave away their country to another people. TfL’s decision is not surprising as it is, at best, susceptible to or, at worst, complicit with, all the institutional forces and active lobby groups which continuously work to silence the Palestinian narrative. There may be free speech in Britain on every issue under the sun but not on Palestine."
The British Foreign Office denied Palestinian claims it was involved in the decision to disqualify the campaign.
