U.N. guest speaker Rashid Khalidi says Zionist money behind illegitimate creation of Jewish state

The UN turned to anti-Israel extremist Rashid Khalidi as guest of honor at an event intended to demonize and delegitimize the UN member state of Israel. His comments, and those of his audience, were rife with antisemitic overtones. The event, entitled "100 years of the Balfour Declaration and its impact on the Palestinian People", was sponsored by the UN's committee dedicated to promotion of the Palestinian narrative and held at the UN on November 2, 2017. The Balfour Declaration, signed in 1917, is when the British government expressed that it "view[s] with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people..."

During the event, Khalidi described the Balfour Declaration as a "gun pointed directly at their heads" in reference to Palestinians, as well as a "declaration of war." This war, Khalidi alleged, was waged in part by the "Zionist movement with money, legal means, [and] propaganda..." Khalidi apparently had no problem entertaining questions and comments from audience members, such as: a representative of Oman inquiring about what "leverage" Jews had to make Britain forget about its interests in the Arab world, an Arab "TV presenter" accusing Israel of "rape of sanctity lands," and a Palestinian "attorney activist" accusing Israel of "coloniz[ing] for the purpose of ethnic cleansing."

In their words:

• Khalidi: "For the Palestinians, this declaration, this statement was a gun pointed directly at their heads, particularly in view of the colonialist ambiance of the early 20th century. As I will try to show this afternoon, the Balfour Declaration, in effect, constituted a declaration of war by the British Empire on the indigenous population of the land it was promising to the Jewish people as a national home. This declaration launched what has become a century long assault on the Palestinian people aimed at implanting and fostering this national home at their expense... For the next few decades, this war was waged in several ways. It was waged by the Zionist movement with money, legal means, propaganda, and finally with mortars and car bombs."
• Representative from Oman: "Can you please shed a light on the background of the Balfour Declaration. What has made the British government give such a promise to the Jewish people even though it has an interest in the Arab world from Suez to the Gulf? What leverage has the Jewish, or Zionist at that time to influence the British?"
• Audience member: "At first, 67 words, one paper was enough to launch a long, protracted conflict. It launched the rape of the sanctity lands and displacement..."
• Audience member: "I am a Palestinian attorney activist... [W]hat makes Israel distinct is ... it is also a colonization for the purpose, and with the expressed, repeatedly, articulated purpose, of ethnic cleansing which makes it a bit distinct and worse, as his excellency, the representative of Senegal suggested earlier, worse than even the South African and Algerian under French condition...the purpose of colonization for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians..."