by British Ambassador Barbara Woodward, at the UN Security Council meeting on Gaza on 29 Dec 2023. President, let me start with the humanitarian crisis. The 21 Dec IPC [Infection Prevention and Control] report records that more people are in ‘phase five’ famine in Gaza than in the rest of the world combined. Yesterday,…
Published in The Tablet 16 December 2023 issue. Peace in Israel/Palestine will not be reached until each side understands the legitimate rights of the other – and stops interpreting facts to advocate its own story By JOHN McHUGO Facts are sacred, including historical facts, so how did such strikingly different narratives to the story of…
Background and timeline: Brigadier John Deverell CBE, former Director of Defence Diplomacy at the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), has coordinated a letter from military and foreign policy experts to UK Foreign Secretary Lord David Cameron. It calls for the UK to work with other members of the UN Security Council to bring forward a renewed…
A central contributor to the Keys: a Troubled Inheritance podcast the Balfour Project is running (series two picks up in spring, 2024) is Sami Abu Salem. He is the Gazan journalist who contributes the Palestinian side of the story to Mike Joseph‘s journal of his Jewish family’s journey from Nazi persecution to Palestine, Gaza and the Nakba. Sami’s parents…
A letter, co-drafted by the Balfour Project and CAABU, to David Cameron and James Cleverly MP. Rt Hon Lord Cameron, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development AffairsRt Hon James Cleverly MP, Secretary of State for the Home Department Dear Secretaries of State, Ban violent Israeli settlers and those who incite them from entry into the…
19th December 2023 The Balfour Project and Sadaka, the Ireland Palestine Alliance, jointly presented this timely webinar. While the world’s attention is on the Gaza war, very bad things are happening fast in the West Bank. Susan Power, Head of Legal Research and Advocacy at Al-Haq in Ramallah, analysed the Israeli lockdown of the West…
Avi Shlaim is an Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of the British Academy. His books include Collusion across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine (1988); War and Peace in the Middle East: A Concise History (1995); The Iron Wall: Israel and…
Permissive airstrikes on non-military targets and the use of an artificial intelligence system have enabled the Israeli army to carry out its deadliest war on Gaza, a +972 and Local Call investigation reveals. by Yuval Abraham 30th November, 2023 The Israeli army’s expanded authorisation for bombing non-military targets, the loosening of constraints regarding expected civilian…
To her Excellency the Israeli Ambassador Dear Ambassador, I write on behalf of Westminster and Bayswater Amnesty International Group to express our concern for Anas Abu Srour, 35, has been arrested by the Israeli occupation army on Tuesday, November 28th. Abu Srour is a 35 year old Palestinian, father to a newborn baby, a husband, son,…
By Omer Bartov 24 Nov Like many other people in Israel and across the world, my first reaction to the attack on 7 Oct was of shock and horror. But that initial reaction was accompanied by rage, not only at the massacre perpetrated by Hamas, but also at those who could have prevented this act…
Rt Hon Rishi Sunak Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland No 10 Downing Street, London, SW1P 2AB November 29, 2023 “My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within; my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed, because children and infants faint in…
The leaders who oversaw Israel’s Gaza policy for 15 years are incapable of abandoning the erroneous ideas that collapsed on 7 Oct. by Menachem Klein, 26th October, 2023 0riginally published in 972mag.com In 1991, American neoconservatives — many of whom would become part of the administration of George W. Bush a decade later — were…
A personal view by a Palestinian from Gaza who grew up in the era of the resistance group’s rise to power The author writes: Journalism and its practitioners will always carry an inherent point of view no matter how objective we try to be. However, it is built on the honourable principles of freedom of speech…
Mark Seddon: Today British Parliamentarians wrote to PM Rishi Sunak calling for a ceasefire. What did the letter say? Sir Vincent Fean: The letter is signed by around about 120 members of Parliament in both houses: Peers and members of the House of Commons. It was the initiative of Baroness Shas Sheehan, Liberal Democrat. I’ll…
You have a historic opportunity to help end the Israel-Palestine conflict – permanently. As polarisation increases, the world needs you to set out a vision for peace. That vision must give hope to those who reject extremism and want the violence to end. We urge you to do two things: set out a serious peace…
Gaza ceasefire now: Building hope for a better future for Palestinians and Israelis, with equal rights and mutual security A call on the British Government by the Balfour Project This cannot be allowed to continue: the civilian deaths and mass destruction of homes, hospitals and schools inflicted on Gaza over the last five weeks, with…
Sir Vincent Fean, Balfour Project Trustee, on Al Jazeera Inside Story, 9 November 2023 Britain in Palestine 1917-1948 Film Palestinians live moment to moment as Israel’s bombardment continues. Life in Gaza is dominated by fears of Israeli attacks, finding somewhere safe, worrying about food, water, medicine and whether loved ones are still alive. In the…
Government statements and parliamentary motions and debates, October 2023 to December 2024.
The Palestinian-American lawyer, activist and academic Noura Erekat gave an address entitled “In This Moment” on 1 Nov 2023 to the Palestinian Festival of Literature in New York City. The Balfour Project is running this excerpt of her “address to our ancestors” as it gives a vivid and moving outline of rural and peaceful Gaza,…
The Balfour Project podcast Keys: a Troubled Inheritance, tracing the stories of two families, one Jewish and victims of the Nazi genocide, the other Palestinian, uprooted by the Nakba, the Catastrophe of 1948, is written and presented by Michael Joseph, a son of that Jewish family. One of his crucial contacts and contributors to Keys is Sami Abu Salem,…
The Prime Minister Lecture December 2023 Professor Salam Fayyad Prime Minister of The Palestinian National Authority (2007-2013) “In conversation with Salam Fayyad” Professor Raphael Cohen-Almagor (Director, MESC) Sir Vincent Fean (Trustee, The Balfour Project Charity; MESC) Sir Tom Phillips (MESC) Watch here
UN Secretary-General: ‘end this vicious circle of violence’ Israeli actions in Gaza breach international law, says EU’s top diplomat Humanitarian Affairs chief: the laws of war must be upheld
UN leaders speak reason in the midst of madness By Andrew Whitley, Balfour Project Chair of Trustees In the midst of so much madness, misrepresentation and moral equivocation, it can be hard to find voices of sanity and reason. One voice we recommend is that of the United Nations. Secretary-General, Antόnio Guterres. We commend the…
Online webinar hosted on 21 November 2023 In Search of the River Jordan is the new book by award-winning writer and journalist James Fergusson. Travelling through Gaza, the West Bank and Israel, Fergusson describes how historic water resources such as the Jordan River and the Dead Sea have been diverted or depleted, and how the…
In its statement of 13 October, the Balfour Project set out its view on war crimes committed by Hamas and by Israel. Nothing can excuse the murder of civilians and the taking of hostages by Hamas. These are war crimes. The hostages should be released immediately. Indiscriminate rocket fire into Israel should stop. Nothing can…
In our statement of 13 October on war crimes in Israel and in Gaza, we mentioned that the Balfour Project charity has submitted evidence to the Commons Foreign Affairs Ctee inquiry into the UK’s engagement with the Middle East and N Africa. The specific question posed is “What is the viability of a two-state solution…
The Balfour Project condemns Hamas’ act of terrorism of 7 October, including heinous murder and the taking of mass hostages in Israel. Securing their safe release must be a top priority. Those responsible for this outrage must be held to account. One war crime must not, however, be avenged by committing another. Nothing can justify…
The first comprehensive examination of UN efforts to protect Palestinian human rights in the territories occupied by Israel more than 50 years ago.
Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill Volume 836: debated on Tuesday 20 February 2024 Download text https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2024-02-20/debates/1906FBFC-C909-4322-8F64-AFCD6C706E31/EconomicActivityOfPublicBodies(OverseasMatters)Bill Previous debate Second Reading Relevant document: 4th Report from the Constitution Committee. Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Legislative Consent sought; King’s consent sought. Moved by Baroness Neville-Rolfe That the Bill be now read a second time.…
John McHugo, Balfour Project Trustee, international law expert and Middle East historian writes: The International Court of Justice is the judicial organ of the United Nations. In December 2022 it was requested by the UN General Assembly to clarify “the legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory…
Video published by The Middle East Eye on 25 September 2023. The United Kingdom played a pivotal role in the dispossession of the Palestinian people and the Zionist takeover of historical Palestine, says Middle Eastern historian Peter Shambrook. Speaking with Middle East Eye Columnist Peter Oborne, Shambrook says that British policymakers reneged on their pledge…
By Daniel Levy, 13 Sept 2023 September 13, 2023, marks the 30-year anniversary of the signing of the Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles (DOP) on the White House South Lawn. What seemed like an auspicious moment in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and indeed in moving beyond conflict, followed months of intense Norwegian- hosted back-channel…
By Peter Oborne From Middle East Eye The anti-BDS Bill trashes the UK’s global reputation, yet Sunak’s morally broken government is pushing it through without serious scrutiny. On 11 and 12 Sept, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly received a hero’s welcome from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he visited Israel on a mission to…
28th September 2023 Watch Video Listen to Audio/Podcast The 29th of September marks the centenary of when the League of Nations ‘Mandate Agreement’ for Palestine entered into force in international law. This legal instrument purported to put the commitment to establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine made by Arthur Balfour in the eponymous Declaration of…