Souvenir Booklet from our Jerusalem Conference 2020
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Policy Working Group’s Call For Global Recognition of the State of Palestine
Published November 29, 2020 Today, as the world marks the anniversary of the UN General Assembly’s adoption ofResolution 181, which calls for the establishment of two states – one Jewish and one Arab —on the territory that constituted Mandatory Palestine, the Policy Working Group is calling forglobal recognition of the State of Palestine without delay.…
Why the World Should Recognize Palestine Now’
By Susie Becher, published in Times of Israel on Nov 27, 2020. I recently came across an article by the renowned Israeli author A.B. Yehoshua explaining his call for recognition of the State of Palestine back in 2014. One of the reasons he cited was the despair felt by both Israelis and Palestinians regarding the…
ONE STATE: the Most Natural Outcome Of Unjust Circumstances
This is an except from an interview with the U.S.-based Palestinian writer, journalist and editor (of Palestine Chronicle), Ramzy Baroud, by Linda Ramsdens, director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition. It appears in ICAHD’s November, 2020, newsletter, and is reprinted here with ICAHD’s permission. With reference to Oslo, you stated that, “25 years of…
Statement for Conference on Jerusalem
Israel/Palestine: Equal Rights for lasting Peace We acknowledge Britain’s historic responsibilities for inequality and discrimination in Jerusalem and across the Holy Land. They stem from the last century, through the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate for Palestine, with consequences which are still felt today. Past British responsibility for present injustice demands British commitment to…
Israel Eases Path to Citizenship for 20,000 East Jerusalem Palestinians
By Nir Hasson, Nov 25, 2020 from Haaretz, the Israel daily newspaper. Around 20,000 young Palestinians will be eligible to expedite their requests for Israeli citizenship after a court forced the Interior Ministry to publish guidelines for the scheme on Monday. According to experts, the updated procedure should allow another 7,000 or so young Palestinians to…
Time to recognise the state of Palestine
By Richard Burden, October 20, 2020 This week marks six years since the House of Commons voted, by 274 to 12, for Britain to recognise the State of Palestine alongside Israel. It was the first time in decades that Parliament had voted on a motion focused specifically on Israel and Palestine. The number of MPs…
Why Does Annexation Look Like a Problem and Not an Opportunity?
By Ian S. Lustick from Logos, a journal of modern society and culture. For more than forty years experts and politicians have warned of Israel’s creeping de facto annexation of the West Bank. In 1982 Meron Benvenisti and Thomas Friedman declared it was five minutes to midnight”–just a few ticks of the clock before withdrawal…
Illusions and Delusions about Peace in the Middle East
A commentary by Andrew Whitley, with introduction by Sir Vincent Fean Introduction I commend to you Andrew Whitley’s thoughtful analysis, below, of current British Government policy on the Israel/Palestine conflict. Andrew asks if our Foreign Secretary’s recent visit signals sustained Government commitment to a just end to the 1967 Occupation, or was a walk-on part…
Labour MP Stephen Kinnock initiated debate on the settlement and annexation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories
Thursday 24 September 2020 Click here to view video. 3.13 pm Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)I beg to move, That this House has considered settlement and annexation of the Occupied Palestinian territories. This country has a unique place in history and a unique responsibility, particularly if we trace this back to the Balfour declaration. It is…
Palestinian Christian leaders criticise Israel-UAE agreement
“Real peace begins in Palestine” An Open Letter to The Most Reverend David Malloy, Bishop of Rockford, Illinois, ChairUnited States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on International Justice and Peace They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace. (Jeremiah 8:11) Jerusalem September 8th, 2020Your Excellency, We read your statement…
Palestinian clergy: ‘Annexation could be the final straw for a viable Christian presence in Palestine’
Published by Mondoweiss on 20 August 2020 by Jeff Wright “Annexation could be the final straw when it comes to a viable Christian presence in Palestine,” declare pastors representing four of the Holy Land’s historic denominations. “For Palestine, Bethlehem and particularly its Christian population… annexation will be particularly catastrophic.” The July letter sent to diplomatic…
Palestine: 1947 escape from British prison exposed as inside job
Published in The Guardian, 30 Aug 2020 by Oliver Holmes, Jerusalem Correspondent Exclusive: architect leaked plans to Jewish militants leading to raid seen as signifying London’s declining control The family of a decorated British civil servant who built a notorious jail for the empire in Palestine has revealed he leaked the building plans to Jewish…
The Forgotten History of the Jewish, Anti-Zionist Left
An interview with Banjamin Balthaser, published on Jacobin The roots of modern Zionism are in colonialism. This was the foundation of the Jewish left’s opposition to Zionism in the 1930s and ’40s, on the grounds that it is a form of right-wing nationalism and imperialism that is fundamentally opposed to working-class internationalism. Israeli Prime Minister…
‘History will judge us’ — Have progressive UK rabbis reached end of the road on Israel?
By Robert A. H. Cohen, published on Mondoweiss, 30 July 2020 Progressive rabbis in the UK have written to the Israeli embassy in London to express their concern over the Israeli government’s plans to annex parts of the West Bank. The letter has been sent from British Friends of Rabbis for Human Rights, an organisation…
MPs say no to annexation plans
European MPs have come together to oppose the illegal plan of Israel’s Prime Minister to annex part of the Palestinian West Bank, under Israeli military occupation since 1967. Convened by Stephen Kinnock MP, Co Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Palestine, colleagues from France, Ireland, Belgium and the U.K. agreed to challenge and…
European countries need to recognise the Palestinian state before it’s too late
By Sam Bahour, The Guardian, 12 July 2020 In January, when the Trump administration formally unveiled its long-awaited peace plan for the Israel-Palestine conflict – known as the “deal of the century” – not a Palestinian was in sight, nor were any invited to the White House press conference. President Trump shared the stage with…
Over 40 British rabbis write to the UK Israeli embassy opposing annexation
By Alleks Phillips, first published in The Jewish Chronicle, 9 July 2020 Over 40 British rabbis – including former Liberal senior rabbi Danny Rich and outgoing Reform senior rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner – have written to the Israeli embassy in London opposing the government’s annexation policy. Addressing chargé d’affaires Sharon Bar-li, who is Israel’s senior diplomat…
A case for equality in Israel and Palestine
One State? An alternative, authentic Jewish voice By Peter Beinart, Published in on Jewish Currents 7th July 2020. WHAT MAKES SOMEONE A JEW—not just a Jew in name, but a Jew in good standing—today? In Haredi circles, being a real Jew means adhering to religious law. In leftist Jewish spaces, it means championing progressive causes.…
PM Johnson’s appeal to Israel over annexation
By Andrew Whitley, Trustee and member of the Executive Committee of the Balfour Project Prime Minister Boris Johnson today published a last-minute appeal to Israel not to proceed with the Netanyahu government’s plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank after the 1st July. The medium used was an Op-Ed in Israel’s biggest circulation…
Joint letter by 1,080 parliamentarians from 25 European countries to European governments and leaders against Israeli annexation of West Bank
23 June 2020 We, parliamentarians from across Europe committed to a rules-based global order, share serious concerns about President Trump’s plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the imminent prospect of Israeli annexation of West Bank territory. We are deeply worried about the precedent this would set for international relations at large. For decades, Europe has…
By recognising Palestine, Britain can help right the wrongs of the Balfour declaration
By Avi Shlaim This is the full text of a truncated version of Avi Shlaim’s article in The Guardian. The Guardian had edited out the references to Winston Churchill and the Israeli Policy Working Group. The wave of anti-racist protest sweeping through the country has prompted a re-examination of colonial legacies and responsibilities. Britain’s theft…
Church leaders across the globe express deep concern over Israeli plan to annex parts of West Bank
By World Council of Churches, 17 June 2020 Church leaders from across the world are expressing their grave concern over the government of Israel’s plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank. Archbishop Justin Welby and Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster published a “Joint Statement on Annexation” on 12 June, delivered to both the…
Letter to The Telegraph opposing Israeli annexation, 13 June 2020
Opposing the Israeli government’s land grab SIR – From July 1 Israel’s prime minister is set on annexing Palestinian West Bank territory to become part of “Greater Israel”. Annexing the Jordan Valley leaves an enclave around Jericho – a bantustan – and dismembers Palestine itself, making it impossible for any future Palestinian government to administer.…
Nakba: The forgotten 19th century origins of the Palestinian catastrophe
By Joseph Massad in Middle East Eye The Nakba, Palestinians’ loss of their lands and homes, arguably began in the 1880s with the arrival of the first Zionist Jewish colonists, who evicted Palestinians from land the colonists had purchased from absentee landlords. The Nakba is an ongoing calamity that continues to define the Palestinian condition…
‘Boris Johnson must stand up against an annexation of the West Bank’ – Christian Aid
By William Bell, Head of Middle East, Christian Aid UK and Ireland Last June, an 82-year-old Palestinian refugee called Fayza in Lebanon’s Nahr el-Bared camp wept as she told me: “Palestine is in our bones – it is not something to describe. When you lose your home town, you never trade it with anything. I…
‘Uncertainty still about West Bank annexation’ – Guardian report
By Oliver Holmes in Jerusalem Benjamin Netanyahu has announced the time is ripe for his country to permanently seize Palestinian territory by annexing swathes of the West Bank. With a US “vision for peace” blueprint largely backing up his expansionist ambitions, the Israeli prime minister intends to make the explosive move with the support of…
We Cannot Justify Israel’s West Bank Annexation – by 40 signatories in Haaretz
In an unprecedented letter to Israel’s UK ambassador, prominent British Jews warn that annexation ‘poses an existential threat to the traditions of Zionism in Britain, and to Israel as we know it’ The following letter was sent by leading members of the UK Jewish community to Israel’s Ambassador to the Court of St James’s, Mark…
A British Palestinian Perspective: Welcome to the Palestine archipelago
by Ahmad Samih Khalidi Trump’s so called “deal of the century” is an assault on the Palestinian narrative even before it is an assault on their rights. Perhaps, the most extraordinary aspect of the Trump plan dubbed the “deal of the century”, is its clear and seamless alignment with a long history of inequity inflicted…
Boris Johnson has to stand up to Netanyahu’s annexation plans – for the sake of the Palestinians and peace – by Donald Macintyre
Published in the Independent 30 May 2020 Whatever Boris Johnson’s troubles, he can always comfort himself that unlike the prime minister of a British ally 3,000 miles away, he’s not running the country while simultaneously being tried on corruption charges. But a difference between Johnson and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu is the latter’s political nous, most recently deployed in…
Now is the time for true negotiations, not annexation
By Alistair Burt Courtesy of Arab News Three notable interventions from UK sources this week gave an indication that the country’s long relationship with and support for the state of Israel is imminently facing its greatest ever test. Almost 130 cross-party and nonaligned parliamentarians signed a letter drawing attention to the Israeli coalition government’s declared…
Israeli Ex-Ambassador to South Africa raises the Apartheid question
By Alon Liel Published in the Palestine-Israel Journal The “Deal of the Century,” which was publicly released in January 2020, changes the reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict even if the plan itself is never implemented. The likelihood that a future Israeli leader will be able to offer the Israeli public less than the 30% of the…
Letter to Boris Johnson on Israeli annexation 1 May 2020
Click here to read the Guardian article.
Prioritising peace and cooperation in the Middle East in the midst of COVID-19
Statement by Ambassador James Roscoe, acting UK Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, at the Security Council briefing on Middle East Peace Process Published 23 April 2020 Mr President, as others have said this morning, COVID-19 is a global crisis with testing implications for us all. The virus does not respect borders, nor political, cultural…
Balfour Project: writing to your MP about Britain and Palestine/Israel
Here is a template for your letter to your constituency MP. Please amend as you see fit, adding your address, to show the MP that you are a constituent. You can copy and paste the draft into a letter or an email to your MP. It’s better to write to your MP, asking him/her to…
Letter from Claudia Beamish MSP to Dominic Raab MP
This is a letter from Claudia Beamish MSP Member of the Scottish Parliament for South Scotland, to the Rt Hon Dominic Raab, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and First Secretary of State.