Britain Palestine Project
Peace with justice, security and equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians
A statement from the Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, on the postponement of elections in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said: It is disappointing that elections in the Occupied Palestinian Territories have been postponed. The Palestinian people should be allowed to enjoy their democratic rights – and Israel must allow voting for Palestinians…
Excerpt of Statement by British Ambassador Jonathan Allen at the Security Council briefing on the Middle East on 23 April 2021 Mr President, following elections held in Israel on 24 March, we look forward to working with a new Israeli government, when it is formed. We also strongly support the forthcoming elections in the Occupied…
What is more likely to incite violence? Military occupation for 53 years. Over 650,000 Israelis in illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, including East Jerusalem 12,000 new settler housing units approved by the Israeli Government in 2020, plus 2,500 approved this January Demolitions of Palestinian homes at an unprecedented high. Schools are also…
UK charities statement on the Prime Minister’s comments on the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation – 14 April 2021 We condemn the Prime Minister’s statement on the ICC’s investigation into alleged grave crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). This investigation is bringing victims, survivors and their families one step closer to justice –…
The Balfour Project read with sadness and dismay the concluding words in the Prime Minister’s letter to the Conservative Friends of Israel of 9 April 2021. These words assert that “Palestine is not a sovereign State” and that the investigation by the ICC “gives the impression of being a partial and prejudicial attack on a…
A group of academics, the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine, has uncovered what it describes as bias that has been introduced into British GCSE textbooks on Middle East history. BRICUP found hundreds of changes in two books published by Pearson, averaging over three alterations per page. The changes to the books were made…
We, the undersigned, share our deep concern at the threat of illegal Israeli annexation of any part of the occupied Palestinian West Bank. Unilateral annexation is a grave breach of international law, and a further obstacle to achieving equal rights and self-determination for Palestinians alongside Israelis. Annexation must not pass unchallenged, whether it be formal…
The Balfour Project opposes all forms of racism, bigotry and discrimination, including antisemitism. We commend the recent Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism; one year in the making, by international scholars in antisemitism and related fields from Europe, the USA, Canada and Israel. The Declaration is intended as a response to the Working Definition on Antisemitism adopted…
Julia Bard looks at the Jerusalem Declaration and assesses its potential to re-set the political dial Published in the Jewish Socialist, 3 August 2021 I know they said there would be no exams this year, but here’s a question just to keep you in practice. Compare and contrast these two definitions of antisemitism. Discuss them…
Thank you all for joining us. I’m privileged to speak to you and address this really important and relevant topic of Christian Zionism as an imperial theology. The impact and influence of Christian Zionism have been manifested, especially in the last four years during the Trump presidency, and it was evident to everyone how influential…
By Nathan Thrall, published in The New York Review, 19 March 2021. One man’s quest to find his son lays bare the reality of Palestinian life under Israeli rule This article explains the history and the ethos of the Israeli settlement programme in the Occupied Palestinian Territory through the prism of the death of a…
By Mary Robinson, published in The Financial Times on 15 March 2021. ICC decision to investigate Hamas and Israel has implications for both sides. BP Trustee, author and international lawyer John McHugo writes: For far too long, political leaders have shied away from calling on Israel and the Palestinians to take international law as the starting…
Introduction to UK Government statement to the UN Security Council of 26 February 2021 The latest statement by the UK to the UN Security Council, at its regular meeting on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict on 26 February, deserves attention – for what it said and what it omitted. Several aspects of what Ambassador Barbara Woodward had…
Letter from Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights to Rt Hon James Cleverly MP, Minister of State fo rthe Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
The British Government has now replied to the six recommendations in the Balfour Project statement “Israel-Palestine: equal rights for a lasting peace” which concluded our 27 October conference on Jerusalem. We are indebted to our patron, Rt Revd John Pritchard, for asking his MP to forward the statement to the Foreign Secretary and seek a…
Published by CAABU, 9 February 2021. Over 80 British parliamentarians representing all parties, in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, wrote in a letter to the British Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab that the British government must do everything in its power to prevent the mass/forced evictions and dispossession of Palestinian families…
Two distinguished patrons of the Balfour Project signed the communique below from the Holy Land Coordination (HLC):Rt Revd Declan Lang, Catholic Bishop of Clifton and Chair of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference Dept. of International Affairs andRt Revd Christopher Chessun, Anglican Bishop of Southwark and Lead Bishop for International Affairs. The HLC is a group of Catholic…
By Hagai El-Ad, published in The Guardian, 12 Jan, 2021 The systematic promotion of the supremacy of one group of people over another is deeply immoral and must end “One cannot live a single day in Israel-Palestine without the sense that this place is constantly being engineered to privilege one people, and one people only:…
By Gilang Al Ghifari Lukman, published on New Mandala on 11 JAN, 2021 Recent reports of potential normalisation between Indonesia and Israel have received varied reactions in the respective countries. In his three-month marathon toward normalization, U.S. President Donald Trump has persuaded four Arab countries to open diplomatic relations with Israel. With his term set…
Statement by Ambassador Barbara Woodward at the Security Council briefing on the situation in the Middle East. Published 21 December 2020 Thank you, Mr President, and thank you to Special Coordinator Mladenov for his briefing. As others have done, I’d like to pay tribute to his tireless work in this role to de-escalate tension and…
The rapid integration of the settlers and their roads with pre-1967 Israel means a workable two-state solution becomes more impossible by the minute. By Ahmad Al-Bazz and Edo Konrad, published on +972 on December 31, 2020. How Israel’s road projects are ensuring apartheid is here to stay The expansion of settler bypass roads in the West Bank has been…
Why Avraham Burg, who has served as Knesset speaker, interim president and head of the Jewish Agency, is asking Israel to annul his registration as a Jew Ravit Hecht | Jan. 2, 2021 (From Haaretz) Avraham Burg has been a man of many titles. A scion of one of the aristocratic families of the religious-Zionist…
By Michel Sabbah on 22 December 2020. Patriarch Emeritus Michel Sabbah served as the archbishop and Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1987 to 2008, the first native Palestinian to hold the office for centuries. He is a co-author of the Kairos Palestine Document and a member of the Kairos Palestine board. Israel’s military occupation of…
By Ahmad Al-Bazz and Sarah Abu Alrob for The Electronic Intifada, 23 October 2020. In the northern West Bank city of Jenin, there was once an airfield, a train station, three cinemas and two major roads connecting the town with the neighboring cities of Nazareth and Haifa. In 2020, only traces of these now exist and none are…
Letter-from-European-Parliamentarians-to-President-Elect-BidenDownload
You can watch Open Bethlehem on Vimeo. Below is the excerpt of Open Bethlehem about Rachel’s Tomb, shown during the event. Leila Sansour is a Palestinian/British filmmaker with more than 24 years of experience working in television as a producer, director and writer. She is best known for her two feature documentaries released across cinemas…
In a rare and outspoken item for British broadcasting media on Monday night (Dec.4, 2020}, Channel 4 news tackled the question of British colonialism and its responsibility since 1917 for the dispossession of the Palestinian people and their mass expulsion from their homeland in 1948. British Palestinians interviewed in the piece also raised the difficulties…
Souvenir Booklet Jerusalem Conference 2020Download If you found this video interesting, please consider a donation to support our work.
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.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Talk given on 12 November 2020. Vincent Fean is a retired member of the British Diplomatic Service. His last post was Consul General, Jerusalem, from 2010 to 2014. Before that he was the UK Ambassador to Libya and also High Commissioner to Malta. He has studied Arabic – so his Arabic is probably better than…
Closing Remarks and StatementHE Khaled Al-Duwaisan -Kuwaiti Ambassador to the UKSir Vincent Fean Click here to read the statement. Sir Vincent Fean: I now welcome His Excellency Khaled Al-Duwaisan, Kuwait’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom for the last 27 years. He knows us well – better than we know ourselves. Khaled is the Dean of…
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…