On 13 March 2025, we formally relaunched as the Britain Palestine Project, marking a renewed commitment to advocating for justice, equality, and Britain’s responsibility in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The transition from the Balfour Project to the Britain Palestine Project reflects our mission to hold Britain accountable for its historical obligations and to push for meaningful…
Feb 2025 In this article, in Life and Work, the monthly magazine of the Church of Scotland, Jackie Macadam interviews Monica Spooner and her husband Roger, founders of the Balfour Project (now the Britain Palestine Project), about their discovery of the Balfour Declaration and its consequent injustices for the Palestinians; and about Monica’s book about it…
Lord Nicholas Soames described Britain as a ‘midwife at the birth of Israel’ and urged for a state based on 1967 borders By Imran Mulla Middle East Eye, 18 March 2025 Winston Churchill’s grandson has urged the British Government to recognise a Palestinian state, a significant intervention in British political discourse on the Middle East.…
Daniel Levy, President of the US/Middle East Project, gave this powerful and moving address to the United Nations Security Council in New York City on 25 Feb 2025, in which he set out a six-point ‘scaffolding’ for a peace plan in Palestine-Israel, and stressed that all actors—non-state, partisan resistance and full-blown state are accountable before…
Still functioning despite Israel’s ban, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency chief, Philippe Lazzarini, explains how the agency is laying the groundwork for future Palestinian institutions. By Ghousoon Bisharat and Meron Rapoport From +972 and Local Call 27 Feb, 2025 At the end of January, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) — the main humanitarian…
In just a few weeks, under cover of the war on Gaza and the tenuous ceasefire there, Israel has displaced more than 40,000 Palestinian refugees and destroyed four camps in the north of the Occupied Territories, stoking fears it seeks to erase the refugee question altogether. By Naela Khalil The New Arab, Ramallah, 18 Feb,…
30 Dec 2024 Question: What is the UK’s role in finding a resolution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians? The charity’s aims are educational. It sheds light on Britain’s role and responsibilities from before the 1917 Balfour Declaration through the Mandate period and up to today. It seeks to advance equal rights for Palestinians…
Balfour Project evidence to the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry Submitted 30 Dec 2024 I hope you can find time to read the evidence we have submitted to the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) inquiry into UK policy on Palestine/Israel. It is here and there is a link below, with the FAC’s permission. If you agree…
Unable to pinpoint Hamas commanders in Gaza’s tunnels, the Israeli army decimated entire residential blocks with bunker-buster bombs to crush the passages below and flood them with lethal fumes, according to an investigation by Yuval Abraham 6 Feb, 2025 From the Israeli investigative journal +972 and Local Call The Israeli army intensively bombarded residential areas…
By Richard Burden 12 Feb 2025 Last month, I wrote about the haunting photo of Dr Hussam Abu Safiya standing alone and unarmed in front of advancing Israeli tanks amid ruins around his hospital in Gaza. I called the post “What courage looks like.” Soon after the photo was taken, Dr Abu Safiya was abducted by Israeli…
By Andrew Whitley, Balfour Project Chair 10 February 2025 The Balfour Project believes that no solution proposed by the Trump administration will accord with international law, which the UK is committed to uphold The United States is essential to a just resolution in Israel/Palestine. But it has long been clear that Washington is not an…
The report British Military Collaboration with Israel (January 2025), published by the British Palestinian Committee, examines the extent of the United Kingdom’s military ties with Israel and their implications under international law. It argues that the UK’s support – through arms exports, military logistics, and intelligence cooperation – contributes to Israel’s military operations in Gaza…
By Andrew Whitley Chair, Balfour Project 30 Jan 2025 For millions of Palestinians worldwide, 30 Jan 2025 is set to become yet another painful landmark in their long struggle for self-determination. As of this date, Israel hopes to sever the umbilical cord which ties the Palestinian refugees to their ancestral homeland and, in the process,…
Below we reproduce an interview with former Israeli Diplomat Alon Liel in which he stresses the influence the UK still has in Israel and the powerful message UK recognition of Palestine would send to the Israeli government. In 2020, Alon Liel gave a talk to the Balfour Project in which he called for an end…
Cynical, unwilling, fearful: Benjamin Netanyahu, who rejected this same hostage deal when the Biden administration proposed it months ago, has now been bulldozed into wide-ranging concessions. For the hostages, and for Israel, this is the only morally correct end to an unbearable saga Excerpts from an article by Amos Harel, military and defence correspondent of…
How the Balfour Project grew to be influential in helping people learn about the tragic conflict in Israel/Palestine.
UNRWA must continue its vital work, says UK parliamentary report on occupied Palestinian territory, citing humanitarian catastrophe 20 January 2025 Summary of the report and recommendations The report by the UK parliamentary International Development Committee* provides a critical examination of the humanitarian and legal dimensions of the ongoing situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).…
Sami abu Salem is a Gaza journalist who, like most Gazan Palestinians, has been pursued with his extended family up and down the Strip by Israel’s war machine since October, 2023. Sami has reported regularly to broadcaster and film-maker Mike Joseph, and so to the Balfour Project. Earlier this week he sent this voice commentary…
15 January 2025 The Balfour Project is delighted to announce the appointment of Brian Brivati as its first Executive Director as of today, 15 January 2025. This appointment marks an important step forward in the growth of the charity as an effective British advocate for peace with justice and equality for Palestinians and Israelis alike.…
Imran Mulla, of Middle East Eye, tries and fails to find any consistency in the Government’s approach to the war on Gaza and any real pressure on Israel 3 Jan 2025 Six months after Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won the general election in the United Kingdom, his Government’s approach to the war has alienated UK…
By Richard Burden 3 Jan 2025: The picture on our Home Page is a photo that will come to symbolise the sheer enormity of Israel’s assault on healthcare in Gaza and its attempt to empty the north of Gaza of Palestinians altogether. It is ethnic cleansing and it is deliberate policy. It is not even…
Introduction by Timothy Mattar, Trustee 27 November 2024 The Balfour Project is proud to share the findings of a recent survey entitled ‘Palestine, Israel and the British’, examining the views of the British public on the war in Gaza and solutions to the wider conflict. This timely research, organised by UKPAN and supported by the…
Today, 5 Dec 2024, Amnesty International, a respected, international non-governmental organisation, has published an extensive report which concludes that Israel has committed, and is continuing to commit, a genocide in Gaza. Please read the report here. The report uses the framework of the Genocide Convention to examine prohibited acts contained within it and the specific…
The story isn’t Hamas, religion or terrorism. Rashid Khalidi, eminent historian and a pre-eminent Palestinian intellectual of our time, is convinced that the Israelis simply do not understand the conflict – living in a ‘bubble of false consciousness’. Here he talks to Haaretz reporter Itay Mashiach 30 Nov 2024 On May 1 this year, the day…
These are the words of Amro, the informally adopted Gazan grandson of MIRANDA PINCH, a long-time member of the Balfour Project Advisory Forum. Miranda recently made a solidarity pilgrimage to the illegally Israeli occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem as representative of the Sabeel-Kairos charity, which supports peace and justice in the Holy Land. There…
Now more than ever, a year on since Hamas’ surprise attack on southern Israel, and Israel’s continued assault on Gaza, the role of journalists and media organisations has been vital, but it has also been called into question. This event will be the inaugural memorial lecture for the late Ian Black, former visiting fellow at…
By Andrew Whitley and Lara Bird-Leakey 22 November 2024 Yesterday, 21 Nov 2024, the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague unanimously confirmed arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. In doing so, the judges rejected the applications by Israel which sought to dismiss…
By Richard Burden & Phyllis Starkey 16 Nov 2024 You always think things cannot get any worse for the Palestinians. But every year they do. It is 15 years since Israel last allowed a UK parliamentary delegation into the Gaza Strip through the border crossing it controlled. The worst military assault yet experienced by the…
By Menachem Klein In the past year, I have been trying to decipher what happened to most Israeli Jews. What clouded their minds and hardened their hearts to what Israel’s armed forces are doing in their name to Palestinians and Lebanese? Answering these questions, I do not intend to justify Israel’s alleged war crimes, but…
By Lara Bird-Leakey 30 Oct 2024 In an unsurprising yet unprecedented attack, the Israeli Knesset voted on Monday 28 Oct to ban the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (for Palestinian refugees) inside Israel and the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). The legislation states that UNRWA “shall not establish any representation, provide any services or conduct…
By Mike Joseph ‘No bombs, no bodies’, wrote a viewer about my film, GAZA A Story of Love and War, ‘and yet so powerful and moving’. Lacking the expected screenplay of horror that fills television and online news daily since October 2023, this film may at first seem little more than two journalists talking about…
Under the leadership of Josh Paul and Tariq Habash, a coalition of Americans is ushering in a new chapter for US politics and policy on Israel/Palestine.. A New Policy will work to align our foreign policy with American values of equality, justice, human rights and freedom for all Washington, DC , 16 Oct— Former U.S.…
Sun 27 Oct 2024 Jewish Voice for Labour introduction The UK may have left the European Union, but it remains an important international organisation with influence on the world stage. It seems, however, to be tying itself in knots over Israel and Palestine. In doing so it is failing to fulfil its legal duties –…
By Lara Bird-Leakey 25 October 2024 For 384 days the world has watched the horrors unleashed by a rogue state acting with complete impunity. For 384 days, the UK Government has used the shield of Western democracy to ignore the rule of law and turn a blind eye to the victimisation of the Palestinian people,…
In 25 minutes, this short sequel to GAZA A Story of Love and War, delivers three dramatic moments: The film is based on audience discussions following Ceredigion screenings of GAZA A Story of Love and War. Constituency MP Ben Lake reveals that no subject concerns his constituents more urgently than Gaza. He shares with the audience and…
By Joseph Willits 16 Oct 2024 Joseph Willits is Head of Parliamentary Affairs at the Council for Arab British Understanding, and this article first appeared in Middle East Eye. Some hoped the new Government would chart a fresh course: but after 100 days in office, Keir Starmer continues to fail Palestinians One hundred days ago,…