2022 marks the centenary of the establishment of British Mandate in Palestine (1922-1948), as instituted under the League of Nations.

In the five years leading up to the start of this era, Lord Arthur James Balfour, who at the time served as Britain’s foreign secretary and the University of Edinburgh’s chancellor (1891-1930), issued a sixty-seven-word letter of intent, which had seismic implications on the Arab world in general, and Palestine specifically.

Balfour’s promise was one that endorsed Britain’s support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, while simultaneously denying the recognition of Palestinian peoplehood with national rights to self-determination. This decision, though categorically challenged by Palestinian society and leadership, became juridically enshrined under British Mandate.

The results of this decision would later come to sow death and destruction in Palestine through means of forced expulsion and colonial dispossession, setting into motion an on-going structure of settler-colonialism and displacement today.

In deepening transparency and accountability for the UK’s imperial past and University of Edinburgh's institutional memory, eminent Palestinian historian and cartographer Dr. Salman Abu Sitta addresses Balfour on his deeds according to the record, as both witness and survivor.

Dr. Abu Sitta's lecture reflects upon a life-time of research arising from Balfour's legacy and what it has meant for Palestine and Palestinians, past and present. 

The seminar is organised by RACE.ED & Kenyon Institute - Centre for British Research in the Levant (CBRL)