Britain Palestine Project
Peace with justice, security and equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians
By Richard Burden While the news from the Middle East is understandably now focusing on the horrors unfolding in Lebanon and the real threat of tit for tat strikes between Israel and Iran escalating into a full-scale regional war, please do not forget the agony which people in Gaza and the West Bank continue to…
By Peter Oborne Middle East Eye, 4 Oct 2024 His deft diplomacy stands in sharp contrast to the likes of Netanyahu, Biden and Starmer Just over 30 years ago, Conservative politician Michael Ancram made a journey into the heart of Irish Republican Army territory in Roman Catholic Derry in Northern Ireland. Accompanied only by his…
By Jonathan Kuttab This question is important because of the prevailing political and media narratives. These narratives claim that what Hamas did on that day, apart from being unprovoked, was so heinous and evil that it excused everything that happened next. This is allowing politicians to claim that the evil of Israel’s genocidal attacks were…
‘Your name and your deeds were forgotten Before your bones were dry, And the lie that slew you is buried Under a deeper lie. ‘But the thing that I saw in your face No power can disinherit: No bomb that ever burst Shatters the crystal spirit.’ These words of George Orwell’s, written in an essay…
During the First World War, Britain promised the Arabs of the Ottoman-ruled Middle East an independent state in exchange for revolting against the Ottomans. The British changed course soon after, breaking their promise to the Arabs, and paving a way for the creation of a Jewish state on Palestinian lands. In this intervew with The…
On 18 September the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) voted to adopt a resolution which reaffirms the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) of 19 July 2024. The vote followed a debate concerning Israeli actions in occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. There were 124 votes in favour,…
By Lara Bird-Leakey Three months ago, a small village in Area C called Um al-Khair suffered the worst demonstration of settler colonial violence and annexation in the West Bank since 7th October. Seemingly random settler violence ripped through the village and came to a head on the 26th June. Israeli settlers destroyed 25 houses, rendering…
Richard Burden and Dr Phyllis Starkey, both former Labour MPs and both Balfour Project Trustees, set out eight targets for Keir Starmer’s Government to restore balance to UK policy. This entails more effective measures with regards to Israel and affirmation of the Palestinian right to self-determination. Political parties across Europe and in the USA have failed…
By Richard Burden 2 Sept 2024 In June 2023, I visited a hospital in Nablus, in the Israel-occupied West Bank, a few hours after it had been surrounded by Israeli troops. The attacks that have been launched on West Bank towns, villages and refugee camps this week are a big escalation but they are still…
On 6 April this year (2024), amid steadily increasing Israeli aggression and oppression in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank, Israeli security agents seized at gunpoint a 23-year-old Palestinian woman, Layan Nasir, taking her from her home in the town of Bir Zeit, near Ramallah There was no charge, no indication of trial,…
By Daniel Levy US policies strengthen Benjamin Netanyahu – whose political preference in the short term is an open-ended war, not a deal. Kamala Harris should not continue this (This article appeared in The Guardian on 27 Aug 2024) The Biden administration remains in an intense phase of Middle East diplomatic activity working to avoid a regional…
Click here to download this as a Word document. Preamble Labour Party election manifesto, 2024 “Palestinian statehood is the inalienable right of the Palestinian people. It is not in the gift of any neighbour and is also essential to the long-term security of Israel. We are committed to recognising a Palestinian state as a contribution…
By Diana Safieh This article first appeared in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs of August/September 2024, pp. 20-2 ON 6 JUNE this year, at a Balfour Project conference in London, Palestinian political analyst Nour Odeh discussed the unique survivor’s guilt felt by Palestinians in the West Bank during Israel’s current war in Gaza.…
By Richard Sewell 2 August 2024 People must not avert their eyes from the conflict in the Holy Land, writes Richard Sewell in a personal reflection from Jerusalem In 1955, the Anglican priest and monk (and later bishop) Trevor Huddleston was recalled to England by his Order, having served for 15 years as a priest in apartheid-era…
A historian of the Middle East recalls the passionate Zionists who opposed such an entity as a distraction from the goal of ‘true Zionism’, which was to create a land where Arabs and Jews would flourish together. By JOHN MCHUGO From the 27 July 2024 edition of THE TABLET “A STATE at any cost” is…
By Joseph Massad Wed 31 Jul 2024 Jewish Voice for Labour introduction Joseph Massad, professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University, in New York City, looks at the conscious effort that goes into framing the way in which the struggle for (and against!) Palestinian self-determination is understood. There is in effect…
By Menachem Klein 31/07/2024 The Palestinian reconciliation agreement signed in Beijing on 22 July[1] did not attract much attention. It is easy to understand why. Many agreements like it have been signed between Fatah and Hamas since the 1980s and have not been implemented. What is different about this agreement? The difference does not lie in…
Successes so far: Summary We asked the Government, through David Lammy, the new Foreign Secretary to change its predecessor’s policy now in several ways, consistent with the comprehensive Action Points produced after our annual conference in June. The results so far are: Details UNRWA Funding– Foreign Secretary David Lammy restored UK funding, allocating £21m towards UNRWA’s…
By Oren Ziv, July 8, 2024 Israeli soldiers describe the near-total absence of firing regulations in the Gaza war, with troops shooting as they please, setting homes ablaze and leaving corpses on the streets — all with their commanders’ permission In early June, al Jazeera aired a series of disturbing videos revealing what it described as…
Today, the ICJ has delivered its Opinion: the 1967 Israeli occupation is unlawful. The Balfour Project supports this Opinion and calls on the British Government to do so. In 2022 the UN General Assembly asked the ICJ two questions: The Court dismissed the Conservative Government’s contention that it should decline to deliver an opinion. The…
Balfour Project urges UK to support court Today [19 July 2024], the ICJ has delivered its Opinion: the 1967 Israeli occupation is unlawful. The Balfour Project supports this Opinion and calls on the British Government to do so. In 2022 the UN General Assembly asked the ICJ two questions: The Court dismissed the Conservative Government’s…
Menachem Klein explores how Israel’s rule over the Palestinians has created a new form of the religion Originally published in Logos. A fundamental question: “Are we, Israelis, still Jews?”, asked the philosopher Ernest Simon in 1953.[1] What looks like a provocative question, was indeed a descriptive statement. He concluded that the establishment of the Jewish…
In answer to the Balfour Project’s request to the four main Westminster parties for their positions on the Gaza situation and the wider crisis in Israel/Palestine, in particular the list of demands that emerged from our annual conference in London on 6 June, we have received three statements: from the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats…
The Balfour Project’s Lara Bird-Leakey reports on the latest settler raids in the South Hebron Hills and the imminent erasure of a Palestinian community “The worst day ever in Umm Al-Khair. The Israeli occupation forces are destroying people’s homes. So far, they have destroyed four houses. They are still in the village and continuing destroying,…
The June-July 2024 report of the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, primarily on Gaza and Southern Israel but also including the West Bank and East Jerusalem, finds that on 7 Oct last year, Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas, committed war crimes, including abuses of International Human Rights Law…
Letter to the Editor, Church Times, 7 June 2024 From the Rt Revd Michael Doe (Balfour Project Trustee), the Very Revd Nicholas Frayling (Chair of the Balfour Project Advisory Forum), and the Rt Revd John Pritchard (Balfour Project Patron) Sir, — As beneficiaries of the Church of England Pension Scheme, we are particularly concerned with…
The Times of London has published this letter from John Bond, a founding member of the Balfour Project and a member of the Balfour Project Advisory Forum. Sir, I disagree with the assertion in your leading article that any democratic government would have liberated its citizens by the means used by the Israel Defence Forces…
Transcript from our ‘Peace with Justice – how to get there’ Conference in London on 6th June 2024. Daniel Levy Confusion reigns since President Biden gave his ceasefire speech on 31 May. The White House then issued a statement signed by a number of countries, mostly those that have nationals held hostage in Gaza. It…
Israel’s war on Gaza may be “a curtain call” for the post-World War Tw0 international rules-based order, Amnesty International secretary general Agnes Callamard said on Thursday. “The gravity of the violations being committed, the fact that we are witnessing them every day… the flimsy justification by western democracies – all of these warn… of a…
Britain must recognise Palestine. It is a step towards upholding the Palestinian right of self-determination – a fundamental right under international law. Most UN member states have already recognised Palestine. Recognition cannot be dependent on negotiations, as the British Government has suggested, and it has waited too long for ‘the right time’. The position of…
Top Israeli Government and security officials have overseen a nine-year surveillance operation targeting the International Criminal Court and Palestinian rights groups to try to thwart a war crimes probe, reveals a joint investigation by +972, Local Call and The Guardian By Yuval Abraham and Meron Rapoport 28 May, 2024 For nearly a decade, Israel has…
Article in The Independent, 27 May 2024 For more than a century, Britain has shown scant respect for Palestinian rights, says our former envoy in Jerusalem, Sir Vincent Fean – we must now play our part in creating a framework for peace. Palestinian self-determination is the key to a just peace in the Middle East.…
Peace with Justice – how to get there Email your MP on Recognition of Palestine 6 June Conference Tickets & Info Balfour Project Action Points for UK Government The Hamas attack of 7th October 2023 and the on-going Israeli destruction of Gaza which followed are but the latest, and most devastating, episode of cycles of…
The announcement by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan KC, that he has applied for arrest warrants against the Israeli Prime Minister and Defence Minister as well as three Hamas leaders over the events of 7 October 2023 and the war in Gaza is a significant moment for the rule of law…
Special guest Queen Rania of Jordan discusses the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the Israel-Hamas war in this exclusive one-on-one with The ReidOut on MSNBC. “What’s happening in Gaza today… is a war crime,” Queen Rania tells Joy Reid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDxe9JFsfzc&ab_channel=MSNBC