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Recent Articles
- UN Security Council hears a six-point basis for peace in Palestine/Israel
- ‘If UNRWA imploded tomorrow, there’d be no alternative’
- ‘Iron Wall’: How Israel is demographically re-engineering the West Bank
- Written evidence submitted to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee by the Balfour Project Charity (IPC0039)
- What should the UK do to help resolve the Palestine/Israel conflict?
- ‘Bomb the area, gas the tunnels’: Israel’s unbridled war on Gaza’s underground
- When captivity is the price of courage
- UNRWA and the Palestinian Refugees at a Crossroads with Dr Lex Takkenberg
- What to do when the US President advocates the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians?
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Category Archives: Current Positions
UN Security Council hears a six-point basis for peace in Palestine/Israel
Daniel Levy, President of the US/Middle East Project, gave this powerful and moving address to the United Nations Security Council in New York City on 25 Feb 2025, in which he set out a six-point ‘scaffolding’ for a peace plan … Continue reading
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‘If UNRWA imploded tomorrow, there’d be no alternative’
Still functioning despite Israel’s ban, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency chief, Philippe Lazzarini, explains how the agency is laying the groundwork for future Palestinian institutions. By Ghousoon Bisharat and Meron Rapoport From +972 and Local Call 27 Feb, 2025 At the … Continue reading
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‘Iron Wall’: How Israel is demographically re-engineering the West Bank
In just a few weeks, under cover of the war on Gaza and the tenuous ceasefire there, Israel has displaced more than 40,000 Palestinian refugees and destroyed four camps in the north of the Occupied Territories, stoking fears it seeks … Continue reading
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Written evidence submitted to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee by the Balfour Project Charity (IPC0039)
30 Dec 2024 Question: What is the UK’s role in finding a resolution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians? The Balfour Project The charity’s aims are educational. It sheds light on Britain’s role and responsibilities from before the 1917 … Continue reading
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What should the UK do to help resolve the Palestine/Israel conflict?
Balfour Project evidence to the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry Submitted 30 Dec 2024 I hope you can find time to read the evidence we have submitted to the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) inquiry into UK policy on Palestine/Israel. It … Continue reading
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‘Bomb the area, gas the tunnels’: Israel’s unbridled war on Gaza’s underground
Unable to pinpoint Hamas commanders in Gaza’s tunnels, the Israeli army decimated entire residential blocks with bunker-buster bombs to crush the passages below and flood them with lethal fumes, according to an investigation by Yuval Abraham 6 Feb, 2025 From … Continue reading
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When captivity is the price of courage
By Richard Burden 12 Feb 2025 Last month, I wrote about the haunting photo of Dr Hussam Abu Safiya standing alone and unarmed in front of advancing Israeli tanks amid ruins around his hospital in Gaza. I called the post “What courage … Continue reading
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What to do when the US President advocates the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians?
By Andrew Whitley, Balfour Project Chair 10 February 2025 The Balfour Project believes that no solution proposed by the Trump administration will accord with international law, which the UK is committed to uphold The United States is essential to a … Continue reading
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British Palestinians urge UK arms and trade embargo on Israel
The report British Military Collaboration with Israel (January 2025), published by the British Palestinian Committee, examines the extent of the United Kingdom’s military ties with Israel and their implications under international law. It argues that the UK’s support—through arms exports, military logistics, … Continue reading
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UNRWA ban: Israel moves to cut the Palestinians’ rights to their homeland
By Andrew Whitley Chair, Balfour Project 30 Jan 2025 For millions of Palestinians worldwide, 30 Jan 2025 is set to become yet another painful landmark in their long struggle for self-determination. As of this date, Israel hopes to sever the … Continue reading
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UK support would secure Palestinian statehood, says ex-Israeli diplomat
Below we reproduce an interview with former Israeli Diplomat Alon Liel in which he stresses the influence the UK still has in Israel and the powerful message UK recognition of Palestine would send to the Israeli government. In 2020, Alon … Continue reading
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How Trump scared Netanyahu into a ceasefire deal with Hamas
Cynical, unwilling, fearful: Benjamin Netanyahu, who rejected this same hostage deal when the Biden administration proposed it months ago, has now been bulldozed into wide-ranging concessions. For the hostages, and for Israel, this is the only morally correct end to … Continue reading
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A devotion to the truth by people of goodwill
By Dr Stephen Leah 10 Jan 2025 How the Balfour Project grew to be influential in helping people learn about the tragic conflict in Israel/Palestine “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world: indeed … Continue reading
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Balfour Project backs call on UK to address alleged Israel breaches of international law
UNRWA must continue its vital work, says UK parliamentary report on occupied Palestinian territory, citing humanitarian catastrophe 20 January 2025 Summary of the report and recommendations The report by the UK parliamentary International Development Committee* provides a critical examination of … Continue reading
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As the ceasefire looms, more Gaza Palestinians die under the Israeli gunships
Sami abu Salem is a Gaza journalist who, like most Gazan Palestinians, has been pursued with his extended family up and down the Strip by Israel’s war machine since October, 2023. Sami has reported regularly to broadcaster and film-maker Mike … Continue reading
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Appointment of Executive Director by the Balfour Project
15 January 2025 The Balfour Project is delighted to announce the appointment of Brian Brivati as its first Executive Director as of today, 15 January 2025. This appointment marks an important step forward in the growth of the charity as … Continue reading
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In search of a coherent Labour policy on Gaza
Imran Mulla, of Middle East Eye, tries and fails to find any consistency in the Government’s approach to the war on Gaza and any real pressure on Israel 3 Jan 2025 Six months after Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won the … Continue reading
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Another, terminal assault by Israel on Gaza’s shattered health care system
By Richard Burden 3 Jan 2025: The picture on our Home Page is a photo that will come to symbolise the sheer enormity of Israel’s assault on healthcare in Gaza and its attempt to empty the north of Gaza of … Continue reading
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Public Opinion Survey: British Perspectives on Palestine and Israel
Introduction by Timothy Mattar, Trustee 27 November 2024 The Balfour Project is proud to share the findings of a recent survey entitled ‘Palestine, Israel and the British’, examining the views of the British public on the war in Gaza and … Continue reading
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Amnesty International affirms Israel has committed genocide in Gaza: the UK Government must respond
Today, 5 Dec 2024, Amnesty International, a respected, international non-governmental organisation, has published an extensive report which concludes that Israel has committed, and is continuing to commit, a genocide in Gaza. Please read the report here. The report uses the … Continue reading
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Israel has created a nightmare scenario for itself. The clock is ticking
The story isn’t Hamas, religion or terrorism. Rashid Khalidi, eminent historian and a pre-eminent Palestinian intellectual of our time, is convinced that the Israelis simply do not understand the conflict – living in a ‘bubble of false consciousness’. Here he talks … Continue reading
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A terrible weariness of the life of the genocide
These are the words of Amro, the informally adopted Gazan grandson of MIRANDA PINCH, a long-time member of the Balfour Project Advisory Forum. Miranda recently made a solidarity pilgrimage to the illegally Israeli occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem as … Continue reading
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A war like no other: challenge and change in reporting Gaza
Now more than ever, a year on since Hamas’ surprise attack on southern Israel, and Israel’s continued assault on Gaza, the role of journalists and media organisations has been vital, but it has also been called into question. This event … Continue reading
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The war for Jewish supremacy: an Israeli looks into his fellow citizens’ minds post 7 10 23
By Menachem Klein In the past year, I have been trying to decipher what happened to most Israeli Jews. What clouded their minds and hardened their hearts to what Israel’s armed forces are doing in their name to Palestinians and … Continue reading
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The Balfour Project condemns the Israel Parliament’s decision to ban UNRWA
By Lara Bird-Leakey 30 Oct 2024 In an unsurprising yet unprecedented attack, the Israeli Knesset voted on Monday 28 Oct to ban the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (for Palestinian refugees) inside Israel and the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). … Continue reading
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No bombs, no bodies
By Mike Joseph ‘No bombs, no bodies’, wrote a viewer about my film, GAZA A Story of Love and War, ‘and yet so powerful and moving’. Lacking the expected screenplay of horror that fills television and online news daily since … Continue reading
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A New Policy is launched, aimed at reforming Middle East Policy
Under the leadership of Josh Paul and Tariq Habash, a coalition of Americans is ushering in a new chapter for US politics and policy on Israel/Palestine.. A New Policy will work to align our foreign policy with American values of … Continue reading
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The EU resists upholding International Law for Palestine
Sun 27 Oct 2024 Jewish Voice for Labour introduction The UK may have left the European Union, but it remains an important international organisation with influence on the world stage. It seems, however, to be tying itself in knots over … Continue reading
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A personal view: What the last year showed us about how the UK handles international law and values Palestinian life
By Lara Bird-Leakey 25 October 2024 For 384 days the world has watched the horrors unleashed by a rogue state acting with complete impunity. For 384 days, the UK Government has used the shield of Western democracy to ignore the … Continue reading
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New Film From Mike Joseph – GAZA: What do we do?
In 25 minutes, this short sequel to GAZA A Story of Love and War, delivers three dramatic moments: * Plaid Cymru’s Foreign Affairs spokesperson commits to building a UK parliamentary coalition to press for justice for Palestine * Labour Foreign Secretary … Continue reading
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A personal view: How Starmer’s Labour Government has helped enable Israel’s genocide
By 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 … Continue reading
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The implications of the ICJ Advisory Opinion on the Illegality of the Occupation
As 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 … Continue reading
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One doctor’s eyewitness testimony of the agony of Gaza
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 … Continue reading
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Sir Vincent Fean on Times Radio on 8 October 2024
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What actually happened on that fateful day? A step towards understanding
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 … Continue reading
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A year of war against Gaza’s Palestinians – The Balfour Project looks back—and forward
‘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 … Continue reading
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Trustee Peter Shambrook Interview: The British betrayal of Palestine
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 … Continue reading
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The UK abstained at the UN General Assembly on Palestine and Israel earlier this week – here is what the Government needs to do now
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 … Continue reading
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They’re building another wall
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 … Continue reading
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What should the Government do now?
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 … Continue reading
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Getting to the truth about Israel’s assault on West Bank towns, villages, refugee camps
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 … Continue reading
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A Palestinian woman vanishes — under British-era law
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 … Continue reading
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The US diplomatic strategy on Israel and Gaza is not working
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 … Continue reading
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The United Kingdom, Israel and Palestine: Recognition Q and A
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 … Continue reading
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Survivor’s guilt in the Palestinian diaspora
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 … Continue reading
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The struggle for freedom is longer and harder than we imagine
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 … Continue reading
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Reimagining Zionism: the leaders who opposed the creation of a Jewish state
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 … Continue reading
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ICJ rules Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory illegal; Balfour Project urges UK support
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: What … Continue reading
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A New Judaism?
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 … Continue reading
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Israel’s settlers on the rampage in Masafer Yatta threaten to obliterate Umm al-Khair
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 … Continue reading
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