By William M. Mathew. A. INTRODUCTION: A JEWISH ITINERARY B. NEW YORK TIMES REPORTS – PALESTINE C. NEW YORK TIMES REPORTS – SYRIA (AND HOME) D. CONCLUSION: THE ARAB PRESENCE E. END NOTE BIBLIOGRAPHY A. INTRODUCTION: A JEWISH ITINERARY Arthur Balfour`s visit to Palestine in the spring of 1925 came at the invitation of the…
Speech given at Middle Temple Hall, 2 July 2021 It is great to be here to celebrate the centenary of the Palestine Police so energetically organised by Ralph Cairns. I wish the BPPA many happy returns. The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted for almost a century, but crusader times which were very different from our…
This booklet has been published by the British Palestine Police Association (BPPA) for the centenary of the Palestine Police which carried the main burden of law and order during the British Mandate. The Force was at first mainly locally recruited with British senior officers, but the difficulty of policing by Arabs or Jews, given the political emotions involved, led…
Neither Pro-Zionist nor Pro-Arab but Pro-Empire A Reassessment of British Policy in the Palestine Mandate Eugene Rogan is Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at Oxford University, where he has taught since 1991, a Fellow of St Antony’s College and Director of the Middle East Centre. He took his B.A. in economics from Columbia, and…
House of Lords, 21 June 1922 By William M Mathew Contents PART IPART IIPART III PART I On 21 June 1922, following his elevation to the peerage a few weeks earlier, Arthur Balfour – now the Earl of Balfour – delivered his maiden speech to the House of Lords, this in response to a…
Uncovering shocking foreign office communications and using fascinating footage never seen on television before, this documentary shows how British double-dealing during the First World War ignited the conflict between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East. This is a story of intrigue among rival empires; of misguided strategies; and of how conflicting promises to Arabs…
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…
A live online talk in March 2021. Raja Shehadeh is a lawyer and writer and the founder of the pioneering Palestinian human rights organisation Al Haq. Shehadeh is the author of several acclaimed books published by Profile Books including the Orwell Prize-winning Palestinian Walks, as well as Strangers in the House; Occupation Diaries; Language of…
How the Zionists hitched a ride on the Imperialist bandwagon By William M Mathew It was fundamental folly to annex Palestine out of persistent anxieties over imperial, notably Indian, security, while at the same pursuing therein a policy of Zionist settlement that, through resulting ethnic conflict, served to render the territory almost useless as an…
Published in The Guardian, 30 Aug 2020 by Oliver Holmes, Jerusalem Correspondent Exclusive: architect leaked plans to Jewish militants leading to raid seen as signifying London’s declining control The family of a decorated British civil servant who built a notorious jail for the empire in Palestine has revealed he leaked the building plans to Jewish…
It is no exaggeration that the history of Israel/Palestine for the last hundred years has turned on the seminal Balfour Declaration of November 1917. Loved and loathed in equal measure, this was the letter that changed the future. The following extract of the Balfour Declaration from the ‘Companion Guide’ to the Balfour Project film, ‘Britain…
A talk given online on 30th June 2020. John McHugo is a trustee of the Balfour Project and a board member of CAABU, The Council for Arab British Understanding. This paper is the edited text of a Balfour Project talk he gave on 30 June 2020, and is a development of what he wrote about…
On Saturday May 18th 2013, the Balfour Project held a one day conference at The Stripe, University of Winchester exploring the different legacies of the Balfour Declaration and how a greater understanding of history can contribute to justice and peace in the Middle East today. Speakers included, Professor Mary Grey, Rabbi Professor Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Dr…
An interview with Banjamin Balthaser, published on Jacobin The roots of modern Zionism are in colonialism. This was the foundation of the Jewish left’s opposition to Zionism in the 1930s and ’40s, on the grounds that it is a form of right-wing nationalism and imperialism that is fundamentally opposed to working-class internationalism. Israeli Prime Minister…
Palestine: The RealityThe inside story of the Balfour Declaration 1917–1938 by J.M.N. Jeffries Published: 1939, reissued 2017 Formats: Hardback, paperback ISBN: 9781911072126 £26.99 First published by Longman Green and Co. Reissued by Olive Branch Press and Skyscraper Publications. Paperback £26.99 By John McHugo Many people trying to get to grips with the Israel/Palestine conflict…
A talk given online in June 2020. Andrew Whitley: My thanks to so many of you for taking the trouble today to attend this online talk from the Balfour Project, I hope you will find it stimulating and thought-provoking. It may be a little confusing at times because we’re going to be jumping between Palestine…
Washington Report, November 2005, pages 44–50 Special Report by John Cornelius IN THIS article the author relates what he believes to be the true story of how the British government came to issue what has come to be known as the Balfour Declaration. The Balfour Declaration took the form of a letter, dated Nov. 2,…
By Avi Shlaim This is the full text of a truncated version of Avi Shlaim’s article in The Guardian. The Guardian had edited out the references to Winston Churchill and the Israeli Policy Working Group. The wave of anti-racist protest sweeping through the country has prompted a re-examination of colonial legacies and responsibilities. Britain’s theft…
League of Nations 30 November 1937 C.495.M.336.1937.VI.Geneva, November 30th, 1937. LEAGUE OF NATIONS MANDATES P A L E S T I N E ——– REPORT of the PALESTINE ROYAL COMMISSION presented by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to the United Kingdom Parliament by Command of His Britannic Majesty (July 1937) Distributed at the…
Online talk by Sir Vincent Fean, Balfour Project, 2 April 2020 Read the transcript below: Vincent: A welcome to all. Thank you all for joining the Balfour Project today. I think it’s important to have this discussion to keep the spotlight on an issue which only gets worse with neglect. And at this time of…
One of the many merits of the book is the way Khalidi uses his family and his own life experience to tell this tragic, yet-to-be-righted, story of the Palestinians.
This article from Haaretz, which was published in July 2019, describes how Israel is suppressing information on what actually happened during the Nakba.
Daniel Seidemann on the Trump plan’s implications for Jerusalem An Israeli lawyer based in Jerusalem, Daniel Seidemann is the world’s leading expert on the city’s built landscape and a key reference source for many governments. Founder of the Terrestrial Jerusalem website, he has long been an advocate for Palestinian property rights, in the face of…
Bernard Regan shows us what Britain did (and what Britain thought it was doing) by issuing the Balfour Declaration, by incorporating it into the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, and by governing Palestine in a way intended to implement it.
We have PDF copies of these panels at A1 size. We also have printed copies mounted on polystyrene and suitable for use in an exhibition. If you would like to set up an exhibition and hire these mounted panels or have a set of the pdf copies please email info@balfourproject.org. This is the first of…
An eloquent account of the disastrous course and consequences, still with us, of Britain’s 31 years’ ownership of and faltering rule in Palestine.
Claudia Beamish MSP (Labour) introduced a members’ business debate on motion S5M-16637, “Towards an independent Palestinian state: a Scottish proposal” calling for action leading to an independent Palestinian state and acknowledging Britain’s historical responsibilities in what was to become Israel and Palestine. Claudia argued that British engagement is needed now to help secure a better…
During the Arab Revolt of 1936-39 the British carried out brutal military attacks on Palestinian civilians in rural areas, forerunners of what seems to be Israel’s latest policy of emptying the camps of the northern occupied West Bank of their refugee population.
John McHugo Edited text of speech for the Balfour Project event The Tragedy of Gaza in Edinburgh 17 March 2018 My role is to explain why Britain carries a historic responsibility to the people of Palestine generally, to the people of Gaza in particular, and also, I must stress, to the people of Israel. I…
William M. Mathew See also Part I and Part II A. GEORGE MARSHALL: ‘A NEAR-RUN THING’. Truman’s fundamental position was straightforward – at least retrospectively. As President, he was in charge. In ‘differences of opinion between the White House and the State Department on the business of Palestine’, he wrote in his memoirs, ‘there was…
William M. Mathew Part I: U.S. Recognition of Israel, 14 May 1948: Roosevelt, Truman, Marshall: A Sequence of Contingencies Part III: U.S. Recognition of Israel, 14 May 1948: ‘A Near-Run Thing’ The obvious question presents itself: given the near-universal presidential negativity, how was it possible for Truman to make the clear decision in mid-May 1948…
Part I: Uncertainties See also Part II: U.S. Recognition of Israel, 14 May 1948: Truman’s Belated Support Part III: U.S. Recognition of Israel, 14 May 1948: ‘A Near-Run Thing’ William M. Mathew Abstract Zionism`s two most notable international successes in the 20th century were the U.K. Balfour Declaration, 2 November 1917, and the U.S. recognition…
March 14th and 17th 2019 On March 14th at 300 people at Glasgow University heard former British and Israeli diplomats and distinguished journalists speak on ‘The news from Gaza: dispelling myths and telling the truth’. The following Sunday at Edinburgh University 400 people heard politicians, former diplomats and others speak on ‘Tragedy in Gaza – Britain’s…
We are most grateful to the Times Literary Supplement for allowing us to reprint this review of The Arab Awakening, by George Antonius, published in 1938.
Peter Shambrook Being British, the 500-year-old British Empire story fills me with a mixture of pride – and pain and shame. Regarding the events of 1948, locating truth is extremely challenging, given the irreconcilable national narratives. So I come at this as a student of imperial history, and as a still-often puzzled, searcher for truth.…
By James Rodgers Rare photograph of the formal transfer of Jerusalem to British rule. For those of us of an age to have known only peace in Western Europe,the centenary of the end of World War I is a an opportunity to learn something of the extreme consequences of the failure to solve political differences…