PALESTINE: CHARTING A PEACEFUL COURSE In Light of Quranic Guidance

the Rock is concerned, there is no question of its return. It was the Jewish qibla earlier, and it is the Jewish qibla today. The demand for the return of the Dome of the Rock is as invalid as the demand (if there is any such demand) of the polytheists to return the Kabah to them, as at one time, it housed their deities. BALFOUR DECLARATION: A CASE OF MISSED OPPORTUNITY W hen the exiled Jews started coming to Palestine to be settled there in the wake of the Balfour Declaration of 1948, the only reaction from the Arabs was violent jihad. The Arab countries started funding the Palestinian Arabs on a large scale. They wanted to crush the Jewish state but failed to achieve their objective. This was undoubtedly a great mistake on the part of the Arab leaders. Had these Arab leaders learned any lesson from Islamic history, they would have indeed found that there was a better option before them. That was to welcome those Jews as their neighbours and work for the progress and development of Palestine in collaboration with them. These Jews, coming mainly from Western countries were highly educated, had great expertise in modern science and technology, and could become the