Britain Palestine Project
Peace with justice, security and equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians
Visit to UK by the Mayor of Masafer Yatt 25 February – 2 March 2024Sponsored by the Balfour Project By Lara Bird-Leakey Setting the scene In February, 2024, the Balfour Project had the honour of hosting two guests from the West Bank to deliver us in person the narrative of those living under Israeli occupation,…
As Christians enter into Holy Week, Church leaders from around the world have signed a letter calling for an end to the killing in Gaza. The Balfour Project, which brings together people from all faiths and none, has asked one of our Trustees, Bishop Michael Doe, to sign the letter and indicate the Project’s support…
Nidal Younis is the mayor of Masafer Yatta and head of the Masafer Yatta village council. He has been active in attempts to save his community since the 1990s. Interview recorded February 29 2024. Masafer Yatta is a Palestinian hamlet in the occupied West Bank, which has been fighting for its survival. Israel’s occupation forces…
4 March 2024, New York I am here today because UNRWA, the United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees, is at a breaking point. Seventy-five years after its creation by this Assembly as a temporary UN entity, pending a just political solution to the question of Palestine, the agency’s ability to fulfil its mandate is seriously…
With grateful thanks to Arab Digest, we reproduce below its newsletter of 23 Feb 2024 on the plight of the Palestinian people in Gaza and chaos in the Commons. Arab Digest is a UK media company producing a daily newsletter (available on subscription) about developments in the Middle East. It is independent of any government…
26 February 2024 By Tim Llewellyn Two Balfour Project patrons, Lord Hain and the Lord Bishop of Southwark, the Right Reverend Christopher Chessun, spoke in the Lords on Tuesday 20 Feb, in opposition to the so-called Gove Boycott Bill, which was having its Second Reading in the House of Lords. The Bill, which the Balfour…
By Sir Vincent Fean, Balfour Project Trustee The Independent, 18 February 2024 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered his military to plan the “evacuation” of Palestinian civilians from the Gazan city of Rafah, on the border with Egypt’s Sinai desert. The same order is to attack the city, where over a million displaced Palestinians…
By Jonathan Cook 30 Jan 2024 Israel has long plotted the downfall of UNRWA, aware that it is one of the biggest obstacles to eradicating the Palestinians as a people There is an important background to the decision by the United States and other leading western states, the UK among them, to freeze funding to…
By James LandaleDiplomatic correspondent Britain is ready to bring forward the moment when it formally recognises a Palestinian state, the foreign secretary has suggested. Lord Cameron said Palestinians had to be given a political horizon to encourage peace in the Middle East. He is beginning his fourth visit to the region since being appointed foreign secretary…
Media release: Helen Clark, member of The Elders and former Prime Minister of New Zealand and head of the UN Development Programme, issued the following comment urging UNRWA donors to immediately resume funding so that humanitarian assistance continues to reach Gazans and Palestinian refugees in the Middle East: “The Elders call on donors to resume funding…
Our Government is wrong, says the Balfour Project Our Government has suspended future UK funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which is by far the most important and effective provider of humanitarian and development assistance to Palestinian refugees in Gaza and the region. UNRWA schools normally teach 500,000 children. Our Government did…
Statement: The Elders call for Israel to comply immediately with the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to protect Palestinians in Gaza from acts of genocide. The Elders also call for Israel’s allies to publicly affirm their respect for the Court’s ruling, and to use the political, military and financial leverage at…
By Ronen Bergman and Yoav Zitun Published by Yedioth Ahronoth’s weekend supplement 7 Days, 12 Jan 2024. Translation by Dena Shunra for The Electronic Intifada, based on the print edition. On the morning of 7 Oct some of the most impressive tales of heroism and self-sacrifice in the history of Israel were written, but so…
The Balfour Project welcomes the Order by the ICJ to accept jurisdiction and to issue Provisional Measures in the case brought by South Africa against Israel for breach of the Genocide Convention. We endorse the press release issued by CAABU shortly after the Court had issued its Order, and draw attention in particular to the nine demands CAABU makes in the press release for…
By Roger Spooner Britain first promised Palestine to the Arabs in 1915 and then in 1917 to the global Jewish community. In 1920 Britain set up the first civil administration of Palestine led by a Jewish Zionist High Commissioner and a Christian First Secretary who supported Zionism because he believed it fulfilled Biblical prophecies. Sir…
by Marwan Muasher As Israel’s war in Gaza enters its fourth month, an intensifying debate has unfolded about who should rule the territory when the fighting stops. Some have suggested an Arab force, a notion already rejected by Egypt, Jordan and other Arab states. Others have proposed a reconstructed Palestinian Authority, ignoring the fact that…
Sir Vincent Fean, Balfour Project Trustee, writes: Christopher Chessun, the Anglican Bishop of Southwark, visited Palestine from 14-18 January. His incisive statement is here and reproduced below. Bishop Chessun is a patron of this charity, and speaks for the Church of England in the House of Lords on Middle East issues. He is a regular visitor…
Professor Fayyad was in conversation with Professor Raphael Cohen-Almagor, director of the Middle East Study Centre (MESC) at Hull University; Sir Vincent Fean, Balfour Project Trustee and former Consul-General in East Jerusalem; and Sir Tom Phillips, MESC Advisory Board member and former British Ambassador to Israel and Saudi Arabia. The full video of the lecture…
Delivered on 12 January 2024 Mr. President, Thank you for this opportunity to address the Security Council on the humanitarian situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. For nearly 100 days, what has been unfolding in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory is a war conducted with almost no regard for the impact on…
I commend the article “War on Gaza: the West’s military action against the Houthis is doomed to fail” by Balfour Project trustee Richard Burden, published in Middle East Eye on 13 January. The article is reproduced below. No supporter of the brutal Houthis, Richard Burden argues that the US/UK air strikes on Yemen actually play into the hands of…
7 Oct, 2022 The UK government is being urged to make a formal apology for alleged war crimes by British troops in historical Palestine nearly a century ago. The petition, along with 300 pages of evidence, is being brought by an elderly Palestinian – a former politician – who was shot and wounded by UK…
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…
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…
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,…
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…