4th December 2024 Click here to download slides. Thair Abu Ras is a PhD candidate at the department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland. A Palestinian citizen of Israel, Thair has extensive experience in civil society in Israel. Thair worked for Mossawa – The advocacy centre for Arab citizens in Israel’, “Sikkuy-Aufoq:…
DetailsBy 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,…
DetailsAs a result of the worsening situation in the Palestinian Territory, as well as the July ruling by the ICJ Advisory Opinion that the occupation in this territory by Israel is illegal, the Balfour Project wrote the letter below to Foreign Secretary David Lammy MP. A copy was also sent to Attorney General Lord Hermer,…
DetailsBy 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…
DetailsBy 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…
DetailsBy 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…
Details‘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…
DetailsDuring 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…
Details14th November 2024 Jonathan Kuttab is a co-founder of the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq and co-founder of Nonviolence International. A well-known international human rights lawyer, Jonathan practices in the US, Palestine and Israel. He serves on the Board of Bethlehem Bible College and is President of the Board of Holy Land Trust. Jonathan was…
DetailsOn 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,…
DetailsBy 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…
DetailsRichard 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…
Details24th October 2024 Helena Cobban is a writer and researcher on international affairs who lives in Washington DC. In 1984, Cambridge U.P. published her seminal study The Palestinian Liberation Organisation. Three of her six other sole-authored books dealt with political and strategic developments in the Arab-Israeli theatre, the rest with more global matters. For 17…
DetailsWatch film here Watch Q&A with director Kavitha Chekuru From air strikes to field executions, Fault Lines investigates the killings of civilians by the Israeli military in Gaza and the role of the United States in the war. As Israel’s bombing campaign continues in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis deepens to catastrophic levels, the Biden…
DetailsBy 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…
Details2nd October 2024 Tamara El-Halawani is a research assistant at the SOAS ICOP project and a recent MSc graduate in International Politics from SOAS University, London. She is currently completing a dissertation on ‘The Erasure of Palestinians on social media.’ Prior to joining ICOP, she worked as a reporter for The Conduit in London and served…
DetailsOn 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,…
DetailsBy 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…
DetailsClick 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…
DetailsBy 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.…
DetailsBy 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…
DetailsA 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…
DetailsBy 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…
DetailsBy 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…
DetailsSuccesses 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…
DetailsBy 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…
DetailsToday, 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…
DetailsBalfour 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…
Details12 July 2024 Watch webinar Listen to audio/podcast Dr. Ardi Imseis is an Assistant Professor of Law, Faculty of Law, Queen’s University. He is a Member of the Group of Eminent International and Regional Experts on Yemen, a UN Human Rights Council commission of inquiry mandated to investigate violations of international human rights and humanitarian…
DetailsMenachem 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…
Details30th July 2024 with Kristyan Benedict, Crisis Response Manager for Amnesty International UK Kristyan Benedict manages Amnesty International UK’s Crisis Response Programme, focusing on armed conflict, mass repression, and UK foreign policy. His work has involved working with and supporting activists and human rights defenders from a range of countries and regions, including Israel/Palestine, Syria, Lebanon,…
DetailsIn 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…
DetailsThe 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,…
DetailsSign up to monthly donations of any amount to become a Friend of the Britain Palestine Project. This helps with admin costs and planning our future, and entitles you to exclusive Friends meetings as well as discounted and free tickets to events. Click here to become a Friend of the Britain Palestine Project
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Ilan Pappe unveils how over a century of aggressive lobbying changed the map of the Middle East.
DetailsVincent Fean May I draw your attention to a strong new economic document called Palestine Emerging. You will find it on a website:a website: http://www.palestine-emerging.org. It’s not a political document, but it is based on the assumption that there will be game changers and that the Palestinian economy will be enabled to grow both in…
DetailsAdrian Kreutz, Lily Wood (Balfour Project Peace Advocacy Fellows), chaired by Matan Rosenstrauch (Fellowship Programme Coordinator) Adrian Kreutz – Israel Arms Suspension Lily Wood – Israel Arms Suspension, Recognise Palestine, TikTok Matan Rosenstrauch Matan Rosenstrauch is an anti-occupation activist and Peace Advocacy Fellowship Coordinator since 2019. He has worked with Jewish communities’ anti-occupation organisations…
DetailsImad Karam I was born and brought up in Gaza. I’ve lived in Britain for the last 22 years. My whole family is in the north of Gaza today. More than 70 of my relatives have died. The latest one is Malak, 10 years old, who is still under the rubble. She’s my niece. All…
DetailsAdam Sutcliffe, Professor of History, King’s College London My research is on Jewish history and on Jewish/non-Jewish relations. I’ve written on the history of antisemitism. I’ve also written and edited a book on the history of philosemitism – the tradition of western idealisation and identification with Jews. This is often overlooked, but it plays an…
DetailsThe 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…
DetailsLetter 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…
DetailsTranscript from our ‘Peace with Justice – how to get there’ Conference in London on 6th June 2024. Since October we have been plunged back to a future we don’t want, one we were all promised would never recur. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 1948 Genocide Convention, the 1948 Geneva Convention, promised not only…
DetailsThe 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…
DetailsTranscript 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…
DetailsIsrael’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…
DetailsBritain 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…
Details6 June 2024 at Bush House KCL and online Scroll to the bottom of the page to see the conference image gallery Read about the conference in Middle East Eye and The National The people of Gaza have been subjected to a level of death, injury and destruction surpassing all previous cycles of violence, and…
DetailsThis KS5 source analysis masterclass empowers students with the tools – critical source analysis training – and informed historical knowledge, to decipher and interrogate historical narratives and representations of Palestine and Israel. The interactive masterclass fosters a more nuanced discourse on historical legacies shaping our world today, empowering students to engage critically with the complexities…
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