Britain Palestine Project
Peace with justice, security and equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians
Holy Land Coordination 2022 Final Communiqué ‘If I forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand wither’Psalm 137:5 Recalling the Balfour Project statement: “Israel/Palestine: Equal Rights for lasting Peace” at our 2020 conference “Jerusalem: from past divisions to a shared future?”, we publish below the 26 May statement from Jerusalem by visiting Roman Catholic Bishops of…
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BALFOUR PROJECT STATEMENT 18 MAY 2022 Whatever our assessment of Britain’s past role as an imperial power, since the Second World War the United Kingdom has played an important role in establishing a new rules-based order in international affairs, and contributed to peace keeping in many parts of the world. In recent months, we have…
Dear [MP Name], I write to express my deep concern over the impending eviction and demolition of Masafer Yatta, a Palestinian community in the West Bank. On March 15th, Israel’s Supreme Court held a hearing to determine the future of eight of the twenty villages that make up Masafer Yatta. The Court has now ruled…
Opinion: from the Israeli daily Haaretz It is one of the most enduring myths surrounding the 1948 war: The epic battle between a fearsome Arab Goliath and a new-born Israel to liberate Palestine. And it’s a fable that continues to inflict harm today. By Serai Assi May. 3, 2022 As Palestinians mark the 74th anniversary…
Statement by British Ambassador Barbara Woodward at the UN Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East The UK shares the concerns expressed around this [Security Council] table about the fragile situation in Jerusalem. It is crucial that all parties take urgent steps to reduce tensions, and avoid further escalation. Jerusalem is a…
By Sara Husseini and Mazen Masri, from Middle East Eye Without conditionality on human rights or a mechanism for accountability, how can an enhanced trading relationship be understood by Israel as anything other than support for its violations and war crimes? The UK’s Department for International Trade is currently considering public submissions ahead of negotiations…
Published by Ali Abunimah on Electronic Intifada, 2 May 2022. Emmanuel Macron’s war against campaigners for Palestinian rights suffered another big setback on Friday. The Conseil d’Etat, which acts as France’s supreme court ruling on government actions, suspended the president’s order banning two Palestine solidarity groups. The court upheld the right to call for a…
This is the full text of the report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, Michael Lynk, to the UN Human Rights Council on March 21, 2022. In it, he comes to the conclusion after citing compelling evidence that Israel’s rule over these territories can now be termed…
Statement by British Ambassador Barbara Woodward at the UN Security Council Delivered, March 22, 2022 Let me start by once again reinforcing the need to prevent a return to the violence we witnessed in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories last year. We share concerns about the escalating tensions in the West Bank, including East…
Recalling our Balfour Project conference on Jerusalem in October 2020… (You can read the Balfour Project Jerusalem statement here.) The World Council of Churches (WCC) has launched this Easter initiative: “The WCC Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Easter seeks to connect the sacredness of Jerusalem with what is sacred to us as human beings:…
On 1 February Amnesty International published an important report on Israel/Palestine. Here is the link to the text of the report, and here the link to Amnesty’s response to questions. Here is a Haaretz commentary on Israeli Government handling of the report. Our roundup of world comment and reaction begins with a review of the…
By Chris McGreal (This article originally appeared in the February, 2022, edition of The Link, published by Americans for Middle East Understanding. In 2006, Jimmy Carter published his bestselling book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, to wide acclaim and a vicious campaign to discredit the former US president. Most of the criticism did not challenge Carter’s assessment…
By Anshell Pfeffer in Haaretz on 1 Feb 2022. This is the third such report in a year to label Israel an apartheid state, but Jerusalem has only succeeded in generating greater interest in Amnesty’s accusations. We may have to wait decades for the archives to open until we learn by what cunning stratagem Israel’s…
Editorial published in The Guardian on 6 February 2022. The continuing subjugation of Palestinians erodes the country’s stature internationally and damages its democracy Ehud Barak, Israel’s then defence minister and the country’s most decorated soldier, warned in 2010 that “as long as in this territory west of the Jordan river there is only one political…
By Elaine Pasquini, reprinted from the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January 2022. In 1948, some 110,000 Palestinians fled to Lebanon after being violently forced from their homes by Jewish militants seeking to create the State of Israel. With Israel still refusing to allow these displaced individuals to return home, they remain trapped in…
By Avi Shlaim This article is reprinted from Middle East Eye, January, 2022. Boris Johnson once described the Balfour Declaration as ‘tragically incoherent’. With Israel now explicitly saying it will never negotiate peace, the UK must rethink its Palestine policy On 3 January, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid made an extraordinary statement. Under last year’s…
Israeli fighters at the 1948 battle in Tantura, a coastal village, finally come clean about the mass killing of Arabs that took place after the Palestinians’ surrender. By Adam Raz (this article appeared in the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz on January 20, 2022) “They silenced it,” the former combat soldier Moshe Diamant says, trying to…
This is a reprint of an editorial in the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz from January 24, 2022. The renewed discussion of the capture of Tantura during the War of Independence is aimed at correcting a historic injustice for which the responsible parties include the courts, historians and elderly soldiers. All of the above joined forces…
Statement by Ambassador James Kariuki at the Security Council briefing on the Middle East Peace Process – Published 19 January 2022 Thank you Madam President. Before I start I’d like to stress, as my Foreign Secretary has said, the United Kingdom condemns in the strongest terms the terrorist attacks of 17 January, claimed by the…
The UNWRA appeal is asking for an additional $87.5 million for cash assistance, hospital expenses and other needs for Palestinian refugees amid Lebanon’s economic collapse. Click here to read the full article in Haaretz. Click here to register for our talk with Al Haq on Tuesday 1 February 2022.
Haaretz Editorial published on Dec. 12, 2021 Soldiers of the Israeli army committed war crimes during the War of Independence. Chief among them were massacres in Palestinian villages that were captured in the decisive battles in the lowland plain between the coast and Jerusalem, in the Galilee and in the Negev. People who were alive…
After their obituary on Archbishop Tutu which did not mention his fight for justice for Palestinians, and moderating out posts highlighting this, the Guardian then published When Desmond Tutu stood up for the rights of Palestinians, he could not be ignored and restored the deleted posts. An Observer obituary not mentioning Palestine or Israel was…
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu wrote an exclusive article for Haaretz in 2014, in which he called for a global boycott of Israel and urged Israelis and Palestinians to look beyond their leaders for a sustainable solution to the crisis in the Holy Land. This article was republished in full by Haaretz following Desmond Tutu’s death.…
By Adam Raz in Haaretz on 9 December 2021. Testimonies continue to pile up, documents are revealed, and gradually a broader picture emerges of the acts of murder committed by Israeli troops during the War of Independence. Minutes recorded during cabinet meetings in 1948 leave no room for doubt: Israel’s leaders knew in real time…
By Avi Shlaim, published in Middle East Eye on 30 November 2021. As long as its political opponents are labelled ‘terrorists’, Israel is absolved from the need to negotiate and gets a free pass from its allies to continue using naked military force. British Home Secretary Priti Patel has declared her intention to proscribe the…
By Colin Smith, December 10, 2021 (This article appears in the current issue of Prospect). On 11th December 1917, celebratory peals in London and the Vatican announced Britain’s first significant land victory in the First World War. But though the conflict was well into its fourth year, the bells were not ringing for ground gained…
By John Dugard The apartheid regime of South Africa initially sought to discredit its political opponents by labelling them “communists”. When the international community realized that the term was abused the regime resorted to labelling its opponents “terrorists”. This proved to be more effective. Nelson Mandela remained on the United States terrorist watch list until…
A motion to label the entire Hamas movement as ‘terrorists’ is an attempt to score political points at the cost of a peacemaking strategy for Israel-Palestine. By Hugh Lovatt on +972, November 25, 2021 Following a brief debate, the British House of Commons passed a motion on Wednesday to proscribe the whole of the Palestinian Islamist movement…
Crispin Blunt said he did not think the measure would ‘draw away violence’. By Martina Bet. Published in the Evening Standard, 25 November 2021. A ban on the Palestinian group Hamas will have a “terrible chilling effect” in the Israeli Palestinian conflict, a Conservative former minister has said. Reigate MP Crispin Blunt reassured MPs in…
By Zena Agha, writing for The New York Times On Oct. 19, the Israeli Ministry of Defence singled out six of the most prominent Palestinian human rights and civil society organizations, using secret, and thus far insufficient, evidence to accuse them of being “terrorist” organizations with links to a militant group. Just days later, Israel approved the construction of more…
By John Dugard, writing for Mondoweiss, Nov 16, 2021. Even the apartheid regime in South Africa never outlawed human rights defenders in the manner that Israel just did when it declared six Palestinian organizations to be “terrorist organizations. Israel has declared six organizations in occupied Palestine committed to the cause of human rights to be…
By Raja Shehadeh, writing for the New York Review of Books December 2, 2021 issue. The Israeli government smears human rights organizations—like Al Haq, the one I founded—rather than attempting to end the violations they bring to light. In 1978 I returned to Ramallah from my legal studies in London brimming with ideas about the…
European Parliamentarians, including British MPs and Peers, have written to the Foreign Secretary calling for Government action to dissuade Israel from three “red line” actions:– designating six Palestinian civil society organisations as “terrorist”– evicting Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem and– advancing plans to build a new illegal settlement on E1,…
Published on The Middle East Eye on 1 November 2021. This article is a condensed version of a talk that was given by Professor Eugene Rogan to the Balfour Project charity. The charity holds regular free webinars focused on Britain’s historic and continuing responsibility to secure equal rights for the Israeli and the Palestinian peoples. Against the rival…
A joint statement by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch called the decision ‘an alarming escalation,’ as the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs ‘unequivocally condemned’ the move. Published in Haaretz on 22 Oct 2021 by Jonathan Lis. Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz has signed on Friday an order declaring six civil society organizations in the…