Several days before the arrival of Lord Balfour in Palestine, this article was printed in the Jerusalem-based Arabic newspaper Mir'at al-Sharq. The unnamed columnist had written an opinion piece on the visit, which was translated into Hebrew and published in the Hebrew newspaper Doar Hayom on March 23, 1925.
Rather than criticise Lord Balfour, the British government, or even the Zionist organisations working in Palestine:
Simply working for their own benefit, and no blame can be attached to people who work purely for their own benefit.
The writer criticises the Arab community and its leaders for spending too much time in futile protests instead of combatting the sale of land to the Jewish population. Once the protests are over, “people will just return to work and life will return to normal,” he claims.
The writer uses strong language to express his criticism, such as when he compares the process of selling land to the Jewish population to “pimping”:
Balfour did not hand over the land to the Zionists, but rather we ourselves give our land to the Zionists ... we pimped the land to them ourselves.
He also asks a number of rhetorical questions to strengthen his message, such as his suggestion that: “Surely protecting one hectare of our own land is better than a thousand protests and a thousand telegrams sent to newspapers?” He ends his piece with the dramatic statement that: “It is good to be seen to protest the Balfour Declaration, but it’s much better to act for the benefit of our land. Where are our sacrifices? Where are our true believers in a homeland?”
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Lord Balfour's Visit in Palestine - At the end of March 1925, Lord Balfour came to Palestine for the opening of the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus. While the Jewish community greeted him with celebrations, the Arab leaders, who had strongly opposed the Balfour Declaration, announced a general strike in protest.
Mir'at al-Sharq - Mir’at al-Sharq was published in Jerusalem and was known as an overtly political newspaper and a shaper of Arab public opinion. From the outset, it adopted a peaceful attitude towards the British Mandate and encouraged mutual trust between the British and the Palestinians.
