When Macron recognises Palestine, Starmer must follow suit Labour has consistently delayed recognising a Palestinian state, despite having been elected on a manifesto pledge to do so – it is now a question of international justice and historical accountability, says Sir Vincent Fean Saturday 12 April 2025 This summer, France is expected to align its foreign…
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,…
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…
By El Hassan bin Talal AMMAN – It should come as no surprise that US’s proposed peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians bears all the hallmarks of a real-estate transaction. This supposed “Deal of the Century” certainly embodies none of the ingredients of successful conflict resolution, including talking and listening, accommodation of core interests,…
Published in a letter to the Independent 30 January 2020 As Israelis dedicated to a peaceful future for our country and for our Palestinian neighbours, we state our principled opposition to the Trump administration’s plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This plan will not solve but deepen the conflict, engendering a degree of inequality not seen…
Dear Prime Minister, This month HRH Prince Charles visits Israel and Palestine together for the first time, invited by Presidents Rivlin and Abbas. He will undertake engagements on your behalf in both countries. This is historic, and welcome. For more than a century of reasons, Palestine is a country meriting equal treatment, equal rights and…
Text of letter published in The Times, January 20th 2020 THE TIME IS RIGHT TO RECOGNISE PALESTINESir, Today Britain attends her last EU foreign affairs council. On the agenda is the Middle East peace process, which must address recognition of the state of Palestine, alongside Israel. The UK retains historical responsibilities regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,…
Conference Edinburgh March 2019 Gaza, under Israeli military occupation since 1967, is home to two million Palestinians. Most are there because in 1948, when Britain abandoned its Mandate for Palestine, Gaza gave refuge to Palestinians forced to flee from the fighting which erupted. For the last 12 years Israel has blockaded this strip of land.…
Dr. Tony Klug has written extensively on Israeli-Palestinian issues. He is a special advisor on the Middle East to the Oxford Research Group and a consultant to the Palestine Strategy Group and the Israel Strategic Forum. His Ph.D. thesis was on Israel’s policies in the West Bank from 1967 through 1973. He writes here…
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…
Dr Jacob Eriksson, University of York Sweden’s decision to recognise Palestine on 30 October, 2014, was a controversial one and this article explores two key aspects. First, it contextualises the decision in relation to doctrines about the recognition of states in the international system. Here, the Swedish decision provides further evidence of the growing trend…
By Tim Llewellyn This is a dispassionate book, written by someone who knows almost everything, about the tragic progress of Britain’s experiment with Zionism in Palestine to the present day’s existential horror. Black does not make judgments. His careful selection of sources and facts makes a neat footpath through the history. I was particularly interested…
Ilan Baruch, Jerusalem, 23.7.2018 In his ground-breaking speech at the Bar-Ilan University (June 2009), shortly after his second term as PM had begun, Benjamin Netanyahu accentuated the Jewish narrative as the bedrock of Israel: 3500 years of bonding between the Jewish people and the Promised Land. Then he added: “the truth is that in…
By Ian Portman Abstract Faced with increasing antisemitism in Europe towards the end of the 19th century, many Jews chose to join the great waves of European emigration to the United States. Since the high middle ages, most of the world’s Jews had settled in eastern Europe, under welcoming Polish and later repressive Russian rule.…
A 20-page booklet is now available containing the speeches at the conference of the Balfour Project in partnership with King’s College London (see below). The booklet also includes the Balfour Centenary Declaration, which has now been signed by 141 British public figures including 83 Members of the British Parliament. Below is a 20 minute YouTube…
Israel/Palestine: Equal Rights The centenary of the Balfour Declaration is the time to reconcile peace with justice for both Israelis and Palestinians, consistent with the principle Britain claims as her own: equal rights for all under the law. Through the Declaration of 2 November 1917 the British Government decided to facilitate “the establishment in Palestine…
NEW BOOKLET Britain’s broken promise: Time for a New Approach Printed version can be bought here or downloaded here A video of the whole event is now available. A public meeting of 1,200 people at Central Hall Westminster on 31 October heard politicians from all parties call on the British Government to recognise Palestine as…
Jerusalem, 26.10.2017 BRITAIN’S BROKEN PROMISE: TIME FOR A NEW APPROACH The 1917 Balfour Declaration, issued by the British Empire at the height of its power, promised to help “facilitate the achievement” of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. This recognition of the Jewish people’s right to a national homeland was integrated into…
The Guardian’s Long Read of 17 October was headlined ‘Britain’s calamitous promise’. Author Ian Black writes ‘The brief document that bears Balfour’s name is seen as marking the beginning of what is today widely considered the world’s most intractable conflict.’ Its three-page article, by Ian Black, deals with the motives behind the British Government’s support…
Nicholas Frayling in the Church Times: British responsibility for the contradictions in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute gives the UK a duty to right a wrong, A policy of 1917 whose legacy needs addressing. Donald Macintyre in the Guardian Oct 13th ‘A chance to make good on Britain’s broken promise’ is the heading of Donald Macintyre’s article.…
“The BBC Radio Four ‘Sunday’ programme on October 1st included this very fair and balanced report on the forthcoming centenary of the Balfour Declaration. Chris Rose from the Amos Trust, speaking about the unfulfilled promises to the Palestinian people, echoed the call for ‘Equal Rights for All’ which is very much at the centre of…
In ‘Beyond the Balfour Declaration: The 100-Year Quest for Israeli–Palestinian Peace’, Leslie Turnberg has tried to grapple with the difficult problem of achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Omah Amarah is 84 years old. From the amount of energy which sparks up as he gets started on his story you can sense his tale comes from the heart; this is no dry text book account of history we are about to hear as we ask him about how he ended up living in…
‘I never knew that ……’ Liverpool Hope University 1st October 2016 The use of round tables in the Eden Arbour Room at Liverpool Hope University facilitated a welcome and a warmth to the buzz of conversation as participants in the Balfour Project conference gathered to consider the ‘Balfour Declaration Centenary, 2017: towards constructive commemoration.’ We…
Given the sheer improbability of the Balfour Declaration, its source in temporary war-time contingencies, its activation of inter-communal conflict in Palestine, and its exposure to increasing opposition both at home and in the Levant, the 1917 War Cabinet pledge to Zionism was in manifest danger of collapse in the early 1920s in advance of…
By Roger Spooner In 1915 Sir Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner in Egypt, offered Sherif Hussein of Mecca an independent Arab state if he would help the British fight against the Ottoman Turks. Hussein’s interest in throwing off his Turkish overlords converged with Britain’s war aim of defeating the Ottomans. There has been much disagreement…
On Oct 13th 2014 British MPs voted in favour of recognising Palestine as a state alongside Israel. The House of Commons backed the move “as a contribution to securing a negotiated two-state solution” The full motion stated: “That this House believes that the government should recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel…
In 2015, historian William Mathew published a book consisting of a series of articles from the Daily Mail of 1923. These presented a hitherto uninformed British readership with details of official promises made to the Arabs in 1915–16 of post-war independence for Palestine in exchange for their support in the struggle against the Ottoman Empire…
This lecture was given by Professor Mary Grey in the URC Church, Crondall, Northumberland for their Peace and Reconciliation centre, 5th September 2014 Here in Northumberland, it is impossible to forget the bloodshed of the Battle of Flodden in 1513, not to mention centuries of border raids, preceded by Viking invasions and so on. In…
On November 9th 1917 the Times published the minutes of the 4 War Cabinet meetings where, what became known as the Balfour Declaration, was discussed. They had before them the document produced by the Zionist Organisation on July 18th 1917 and other correspondence. Official Zionist Formula, 18 July 1917 H. M. Government, after considering the…
Professor Ilan Pappé’s paper at the Balfour Project conference in October 2013, was entitled “Perfidious Albion” The British Legacy in Palestine. Many participants thought it was very inspiring. He revealed that British involvement in the Middle East and Palestine specifically can be traced back to the explorations of the 4th century Empress Helena, mother of…
Tony Klug, speaking at the Balfour Project conference in October 2013 spoke stirringly to the question “Are we trapped by our own narratives?” He began by demonstrating that everyone becomes a player in this seemingly intractable conflict, where what passes for objective analysis masks partisan agenda. He urged empathetic understanding of key protagonists on both…
The American Magazine November, 1947 Summary This appeal to the American people, written by King Abdullah, son of Sharif Hussein and grandfather of the current King of Jordan, appeared in the United States six months before the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. In the article, King Abdullah disputes the mistaken view that Arab opposition to Zionism (and…
This collection of dialectical exchanges between a Jewish academic and a Catholic colleague on the troubled history of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is a dense and demanding book.
Selfish imperial agreements between Britain and France, combined with the publication of the contradictory Balfour Declaration of 1917, fuelled hostilities in the Middle East This article appeared in The Sunday Telegraph on 2 February 2014 By Patrick Bishop The First World War was the most modern of conflicts. Yet the thinking of the men who…
Second annual Balfour Project conference to mark the 96th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration October 30th 2013