A talk at the Round Table workshop on the Middle East. Initiatives of Change International, Forum on Democracy, Caux, Switzerland.
By Peter Shambrook
11 July 2025
I owe Caux a huge debt. My visit here as a student some 56 years ago marked me profoundly and changed my direction in life. It led eventually to a vocation of teaching and research, mostly concerning the modern Middle East.
My thoughts are focused on three words. Responsibility, Accountability and Justice, three words which I believe fit in with the mission and ideology of Initiatives of Change.
Responsibility concerning the Middle East:
It was a British Government which laid the foundations, indeed the first floor of the Middle East house which is now on fire.
No one in their right minds in Britain and Ireland, especially in Ireland, denies the direct, causal link between the outbreak of the troubles in Northern Ireland in 1969, and the partition of Ireland in 1920, and the legacy of that partition. In similar vein, there is an equally direct, causal link between the British occupation of Palestine between 1918 and 1948, and events there today.
From 1920, the Palestinian Arabs demanded a democratically elected national assembly, which would reflect the demographic balance. However, the undeclared, deceitful policy of the British throughout the 30 years of the mandate was to ‘withhold i.e. to freeze, the establishment of representative institutions until the Jews became a majority in Palestine’ – I say deceitfully because for 30 years the British administration in Palestine declared explicitly that the political rights of the majority Palestinian Arabs would be upheld.
After 100 years it is time for a British government to acknowledge its deceit and the legacy of that deceit, which has caused so much suffering. As my book suggests, an official acknowledgement, albeit unusual, would be a constructive, liberating and trust-building initiative. What is required is not a cheap, public-relations apology, simply an honest declaration concerning a previous government’s policy. Consistent denial leaves a festering wound which spreads everywhere. It leaves no room for trust or change. My book is my personal expression of acknowledgement and apology.
After 15 years of fruitless negotiations, the Palestinians eventually revolted in 1936, a revolt brutally crushed by the army and air force. Palestinian militias were disarmed and the Jewish militias armed by the British.
In 1938, Ben Gurion foresaw emptying Palestine of its Arab population amid the fog of war. The Zionist militias under his leadership achieved that goal in 1948. In similar vein – with the same aim – the Netanyahu Government in 2023 attempted – and it’s still attempting – to exploit global indignation over the Hamas attacks to drive out the people of Gaza and of the West Bank. Today US bombs and bullets with UK help are murdering thousands of innocent Palestinians.
Accountability:
Since 1948, no British government has ever apologised, or even acknowledged the part that Britain played in the emasculation of historic Palestine. An unbroken thread of duplicity and denial connects British foreign policy from Balfour to Starmer, via the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing, of 1948. Labour prime ministers like Harold Wilson, the last five Conservative Prime Ministers, starting with David Cameron (Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak), and now Labour’s Keir Starmer – have all been unquestioning supporters of Israel. The current Labour Government remains a firm ally of a regime that is openly racist and committing genocide. Yet it shamefully continues to sell it arms, maintain most of its trading agreements and provide extensive military help and intelligence.
In the House of Commons the Prime Minister provides diplomatic cover, denying that Israel is breaking international law, and maintaining that Israel is not committing genocide.
For its part, no Israeli government since 1948 has ever acknowledged what actually happened in Palestine in 1948. The Israeli national narrative around 1948 is peppered with myths and lies. Its education system, from kindergarten through to adulthood, ensures that generations of Jewish Israelis are brought up thoroughly conditioned to a distinctly partial view of history, which includes the explicit dehumanisation of the Palestinian Arabs. Supremacist political Zionism is not Judaism. Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism.
The Holocaust should teach us to resist the dehumanising of any people. It should not be trivialised, or be used as moral blackmail to silence legitimate criticisms of Israel’s political policies. For decades, Israel’s systematic dehumanising of the Palestinian people prepared the ground for their oppression, and now, genocide.
Finally, Justice: We all have a moral duty to oppose unjust, immoral laws and policies. Opposition within the U.K. to its Government’s policy on Israel/Palestine is certainly growing, but is not yet a tsunami. Some of the opposition is undoubtedly conscience-led: 800 concerned lawyers and judges have signed a letter; 96 Members of Parliament have signed another; trade union leaders have protested, so have many figures in the media.
There continue to be massive regular demonstrations in London and other cities; 300 Foreign Office staff who have raised concerns have been told that they can resign if they wish. . .none of this has changed Keir Starmer’s mind. So far, he appears impervious to change. His priority is to unconditionally support an amoral, if democratically-elected US President and a genocidal Israeli Prime Minister. If the UK Prime Minister ever had a modicum of a moral compass on this issue, he has now certainly lost it. Meanwhile more Israeli hostages die and thousands more Palestinians are murdered. Shame on us all.
There are a number of clear things the British Government could do and should do: stop all arms (as have Italy and Spain); recognise the state of Palestine; impose sanctions, as it has on Russia, and rip up the free trade agreement with Israel; support the ICC and ICJ, ie support the accountability process and, last but not least, stop providing diplomatic cover.
The European Union has also long been a dozing giant in this geopolitical drama. It is easily Israel’s biggest trading partner, furnishing 34 per cent of its imports and taking 29 per cent of its exports. The EU constitutes approximately one third of Israel’s global trade. Any move to suspend the tariff exemptions that Israel enjoys under its EU trade agreement – and the existing agreement with the UK – would have a real effect on Israel’s economy. For now, Prime Minister Netanyahu is relying on Germany and Italy to block such a move.
Fundamentally, the key to Israel’s long-term security lies in a political agreement with the Palestinian people, not in their erasure. This very day, the Palestinian people continue to be erased. Israel should think the unthinkable: negotiate with Marwan Barghouti, the most popular and influential Fatah leader, and his colleagues and eventually release them, as well as thousands of others who are being held without due process. Barghouti, who supports a two-state solution and has been in jail since 2002, may be a key, perhaps the key, to Israel’s and Palestine’s future.
“The arc of history bends towards justice”, said Martin Luther King, to which Jesse Jackson later replied, “Yes, but someone has to bend the arc”. All of us, however hopeless or helpless or insignificant we feel, can contribute to bending the arc, and Caux is one of the few places on this planet where one genuinely encounters an informed, global, conscience-driven fellowship and where one has the opportunity to recharge one’s moral and spiritual batteries, So, I am grateful to be here. Thank you for listening.
Peter Shambrook is a founder member and long-time trustee of the Balfour Project—now Britain Palestine Project, and is the author of Policy of Deceit: Britain and Palestine, 1914-1939 (Oneworld, 2023).