Palestinian tycoon shot by British troops in 1943 seeks justice over Balfour

The walk up to Downing Street in September was a long time coming for Munib al-Masri, the Palestinian tycoon and former confidante of PLO leader Yasser Arafat, now in his 90s.

Masri was shot by British troops while on a protest march as a boy, in 1943. The leg injury has continued to plague him over the decades, like those countless Palestinians who have been injured, killed or displaced since the creation of Israel 77 years ago.

As a boy he lived through the Nakba in 1948, in which 750,000 Palestinians were made homeless by Zionist militias. Many arrived as refugees in his native Nablus in the occupied West Bank.

“I saw them, it was really terrible, they were hungry, afraid, bare footed, they had walked hundreds of miles to come to Nablus for refuge,” he tells Middle East Eye.

Six decades later, his grandson, also named Munib, was shot by Israeli forces in 2011 while on a peaceful protest from the Lebanese side of the Israeli border, leaving him paralysed. 

In September, Masri and his grandson delivered a petition to Number 10 Downing Street alongside British-Israeli historian Avi Shlaim and international law expert Dr Victor Kattan.

They demanded an apology for the Balfour Declaration of 1917, and reparations for the consequences of that short letter that promised to deliver Palestine as a homeland to the Jewish people, above the heads of the indigenous Palestinians.

Read the full article on Middle East Eye here.