Britain Palestine Project
Peace with justice, security and equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians
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
Budget by budget, law by law: from forcing mobile phone companies to expand coverage in the occupied territories to laws that facilitate the transfer of public funds to settlements, Netanyahu’s far-right government is working towards de facto annexation By Tali Heruti-Sover Haaretz, 9 April, 2024 In February, in the midst of the war, Israel’s Economy…
War was the Zionists’ choice in 1948, writes Balfour Project Trustee and historian John McHugo. And Israel must acknowledge its responsibility towards the Palestinians who were turned into refugees…more than 70 per cent of Palestine’s population at the time. Click here to read article in The National
‘It is hard to describe it as anything but ethnic cleansing’ By Donald Macintyre If you wanted someone to illustrate the Palestinian concept of sumud you could have done a lot worse than Halima Jaber Nawaja sitting in front of her house three weeks after Israeli settlers came and told her family to leave it or be…
Dear Trade Secretary and Foreign Secretary, Together we are urging you to immediately halt arms licences and exports to the Government of Israel. This is just one crucial step towards helping to secure a permanent and immediate ceasefire for all Palestinians and Israelis. Nowhere in Gaza is safe. The military offensive in Gaza has killed tens of thousands…
The killing of aid workers in Gaza was a wake-up call for those countries still arming Israel. But by steadfastly refusing to suspend its weapons sales, the British Government has brought shame upon us all, writes the Bishop of Southwark From The Independent 5 April 2024 Some will see the recent and tragic…
The Israeli army has marked tens of thousands of Gazans as suspects for assassination, using an AI targeting system with little human oversight and a permissive policy for casualties, the Israeli magazine +972 and Hebrew-language news site Local Call reveal. By Yuval Abraham 3 April, 2024 In 2021, a book titled The Human-Machine Team:…
A broad coalition of political forces, from Israel’s far right to the Zionist left, have differing motivations for turning the war into the new normal By Menachem Klein 9 April, 2024 For most Israelis, the war has become routine. They have learned to live with it. It is uncomfortable, they think, but there is no…
By Peter Ricketts in The New Statesman, 9 April 2024. On 28 August 1995 five shells landed in the marketplace in Sarajevo killing 43 civilians. The Bosnian civil war had dragged on for more than three years, but this incident finally galvanised Western countries into taking decisive action. Two days later, Nato launched air strikes…
As Christians enter into Holy Week, Church leaders from around the world have signed a letter calling for an end to the killing in Gaza. The Balfour Project, which brings together people from all faiths and none, has asked one of our Trustees, Bishop Michael Doe, to sign the letter and indicate the Project’s support…
26 March 2024 Andrew Whitley, Chair of the Balfour Project The Balfour Project warmly welcomes UN Security Council resolution 2728 demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the lifting of all restrictions on the urgent provision of humanitarian aid, at scale, to a population of 2.3 million. Starvation must never be used as a weapon…
Published by Jewish Voice for Labour on Sat 16 Mar 2024 MESA Board Joint Statement with CAF regarding the ongoing genocidal violence against the Palestinian people and their cultural heritage in Gaza The Board of Directors of the Middle East Studies Association and its Committee on Academic Freedom condemn in the strongest possible terms the…
Nidal Younis is the mayor of Masafer Yatta and head of the Masafer Yatta village council. He has been active in attempts to save his community since the 1990s. Interview recorded February 29 2024. Masafer Yatta is a Palestinian hamlet in the occupied West Bank, which has been fighting for its survival. Israel’s occupation forces…
4 March 2024, New York I am here today because UNRWA, the United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees, is at a breaking point. Seventy-five years after its creation by this Assembly as a temporary UN entity, pending a just political solution to the question of Palestine, the agency’s ability to fulfil its mandate is seriously…
By Andrew Whitley, Chair of Balfour Project Trustees Often an old piece of furniture is so familiar that it’s only when it is no longer there that one realises how invaluable it was – and how much it will be missed. That is the very real prospect today facing the UN agency responsible for the…
With grateful thanks to Arab Digest, we reproduce below its newsletter of 23 Feb 2024 on the plight of the Palestinian people in Gaza and chaos in the Commons. Arab Digest is a UK media company producing a daily newsletter (available on subscription) about developments in the Middle East. It is independent of any government…
26 February 2024 By Tim Llewellyn Two Balfour Project patrons, Lord Hain and the Lord Bishop of Southwark, the Right Reverend Christopher Chessun, spoke in the Lords on Tuesday 20 Feb, in opposition to the so-called Gove Boycott Bill, which was having its Second Reading in the House of Lords. The Bill, which the Balfour…
By Sir Vincent Fean, Balfour Project Trustee The Independent, 18 February 2024 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered his military to plan the “evacuation” of Palestinian civilians from the Gazan city of Rafah, on the border with Egypt’s Sinai desert. The same order is to attack the city, where over a million displaced Palestinians…
By Menachem Klein This article originally appeared in Logos I am not neutral. As a citizen of Israel, I hurt and cry with my fellow Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs, victims of Hamas’ barbaric attack. Struggle for national liberation does not justify a crime against humanity and war crime. Glorifying the murder and abuse of…
By Menachem Klein 2 Feb 2024 Hamas’s attack on 7 Oct and Israel’s retaliation against Hamas and Gaza Strip residents are unprecedented shocking events in their severity, repercussions and impact on both peoples’ collective memory. Only a few of those Israelis who agreed that Hamas underwent a political change since 2017[1] – when it issued its Document of General Principles…
By Jonathan Cook 30 Jan 2024 Israel has long plotted the downfall of UNRWA, aware that it is one of the biggest obstacles to eradicating the Palestinians as a people There is an important background to the decision by the United States and other leading western states, the UK among them, to freeze funding to…
By James LandaleDiplomatic correspondent Britain is ready to bring forward the moment when it formally recognises a Palestinian state, the foreign secretary has suggested. Lord Cameron said Palestinians had to be given a political horizon to encourage peace in the Middle East. He is beginning his fourth visit to the region since being appointed foreign secretary…
Media release: Helen Clark, member of The Elders and former Prime Minister of New Zealand and head of the UN Development Programme, issued the following comment urging UNRWA donors to immediately resume funding so that humanitarian assistance continues to reach Gazans and Palestinian refugees in the Middle East: “The Elders call on donors to resume funding…
Our Government is wrong, says the Balfour Project Our Government has suspended future UK funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which is by far the most important and effective provider of humanitarian and development assistance to Palestinian refugees in Gaza and the region. UNRWA schools normally teach 500,000 children. Our Government did…
Statement: The Elders call for Israel to comply immediately with the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to protect Palestinians in Gaza from acts of genocide. The Elders also call for Israel’s allies to publicly affirm their respect for the Court’s ruling, and to use the political, military and financial leverage at…
By Ronen Bergman and Yoav Zitun Published by Yedioth Ahronoth’s weekend supplement 7 Days, 12 Jan 2024. Translation by Dena Shunra for The Electronic Intifada, based on the print edition. On the morning of 7 Oct some of the most impressive tales of heroism and self-sacrifice in the history of Israel were written, but so…
The Balfour Project welcomes the Order by the ICJ to accept jurisdiction and to issue Provisional Measures in the case brought by South Africa against Israel for breach of the Genocide Convention. We endorse the press release issued by CAABU shortly after the Court had issued its Order, and draw attention in particular to the nine demands CAABU makes in the press release for…
By Roger Spooner Britain first promised Palestine to the Arabs in 1915 and then in 1917 to the global Jewish community. In 1920 Britain set up the first civil administration of Palestine led by a Jewish Zionist High Commissioner and a Christian First Secretary who supported Zionism because he believed it fulfilled Biblical prophecies. Sir…
by Marwan Muasher As Israel’s war in Gaza enters its fourth month, an intensifying debate has unfolded about who should rule the territory when the fighting stops. Some have suggested an Arab force, a notion already rejected by Egypt, Jordan and other Arab states. Others have proposed a reconstructed Palestinian Authority, ignoring the fact that…
Sir Vincent Fean, Balfour Project Trustee, writes: Christopher Chessun, the Anglican Bishop of Southwark, visited Palestine from 14-18 January. His incisive statement is here and reproduced below. Bishop Chessun is a patron of this charity, and speaks for the Church of England in the House of Lords on Middle East issues. He is a regular visitor…