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- ‘Serious concerns’: UK education row as Israel-Palestine textbooks pulled
- Eugene Rogan – Neither Pro-Zionist nor Pro-Arab but Pro-Empire: A Re-assessment of British Policy in the Palestine Mandate
- Call by 55 former European leaders: Protect the Independence of the ICC
- A message to the PM
- Pearson caught in Middle East history textbook scandal
- BBC sparks outrage after removing content following pressure from pro-Israel lobby
Zionism Debate
Essays on Equality, Rights and Responsibilities
Posted in Annexation, Britain's current role, Current Positions, News, Recognition, USA, Zionism Debate
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The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism
The Balfour Project opposes all forms of racism, bigotry and discrimination, including antisemitism. We commend the recent Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism; one year in the making, by international scholars in antisemitism and related fields from Europe, the USA, Canada and … Read more here ➔
Posted in Current Positions, News, Zionism Debate
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Rev Dr Munther Isaac – Christian Zionism as Imperial Theology
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 … Read more here ➔
Posted in Misc, Past, Recordings, Zionism Debate
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The Forgotten History of the Jewish, Anti-Zionist Left
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 … Read more here ➔
Posted in Historical, Mandate Period, News, Zionism Debate
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‘History will judge us’ — Have progressive UK rabbis reached end of the road on Israel?
By Robert A. H. Cohen, published on Mondoweiss, 30 July 2020 Progressive rabbis in the UK have written to the Israeli embassy in London to express their concern over the Israeli government’s plans to annex parts of the West Bank. … Read more here ➔
Posted in Annexation, Letters, News, Zionism Debate
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Toppling Balfour, a talk by Sarah Helm
A live online talk given in July 2020 Welcome everyone. Sarah Helm was a staff correspondent for The Sunday Times and a foreign correspondent for The Independent and she’s written two books, most recently, If This is a Woman about … Read more here ➔
Posted in Past, Recordings, Zionism Debate
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A case for equality in Israel and Palestine
One State? An alternative, authentic Jewish voice By Peter Beinart, Published in on Jewish Currents 7th July 2020. WHAT MAKES SOMEONE A JEW—not just a Jew in name, but a Jew in good standing—today? In Haredi circles, being a real … Read more here ➔
Posted in News, Recognition, Zionism Debate
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Hidden History of the Balfour Declaration
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 … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Historical, Zionism Debate
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By recognising Palestine, Britain can help right the wrongs of the Balfour declaration
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 … Read more here ➔
Posted in News, Recognition, Zionism Debate
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Peel Commission Report 1937
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 … Read more here ➔
Posted in Key Documents, Peel Commission Report 1937, Zionism Debate
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Nakba: The forgotten 19th century origins of the Palestinian catastrophe
By Joseph Massad in Middle East Eye The Nakba, Palestinians’ loss of their lands and homes, arguably began in the 1880s with the arrival of the first Zionist Jewish colonists, who evicted Palestinians from land the colonists had purchased from … Read more here ➔
Posted in News, Recognition, Zionism Debate
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We Cannot Justify Israel’s West Bank Annexation – by 40 signatories in Haaretz
In an unprecedented letter to Israel’s UK ambassador, prominent British Jews warn that annexation ‘poses an existential threat to the traditions of Zionism in Britain, and to Israel as we know it’ The following letter was sent by leading members … Read more here ➔
Posted in Annexation, Letters, News, Zionism Debate
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Book Review: The Hundred Years’ War On Palestine A history of settler colonial conquest and resistance
By Rashid Khalidi Profile Books £25.00 Review by Tim Llewellyn In the midst of Jerusalem’s Old City, on the cusp of the Muslim and Jewish quarters, reposes the Khalidi family library, an archive of scriptures, literature and letters in Arabic, … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Book Reviews, Mandate Period, Post-Mandate Period, Pre-Balfour Declaration, Resources, Zionism Debate
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Book Review: The Balfour Declaration – Empire, the Mandate and Resistance in Palestine by Bernard Regan
by John McHugo In The Balfour Declaration: Empire, The Mandate and Resistance in Palestine, 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 … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Book Reviews, Mandate Period, McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, Pre-Balfour Declaration, Zionism Debate
Tagged Balfour Declaration, Mandate
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Book Review: Legacy of Empire – Britain, Zionism and the Creation of Israel by Gardner Thompson
By Tim Llewellyn, Oct 10th 2019 “…[T]he Mandate has proved to be unworkable in practice…[and] the obligations undertaken by the two communities in Palestine have been shown to be irreconcilable.” (Ernest Bevin, British Foreign Secretary, in the House of Commons … Read more here ➔
Posted in Book Reviews, Mandate Period, Pre-Balfour Declaration, Zionism Debate
Tagged Balfour Declaration, British Mandate
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Impressions of Palestine, 1 April 1946: Pessimist Perspectives
Edit Post Private Memo by Evan M. Wilson (U.S. State Department) William M. Mathew Evan M. Wilson (1910-84), graduate of Haverford College and Oxford University, was in the employ of the U.S. State Department between 1937 and 1961, serving as … Read more here ➔
Posted in Post-Mandate Period, Zionism Debate
Tagged Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, Palestine Mandate
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Book Review: Britain’s Pacification of Palestine – The British Army, the Colonial State, and the Arab Revolt, 1936–9 by Matthew Hughes
by Ian Black The 1936–9 Arab Revolt against British rule in Palestine, and its suppression by the British army, was a precursor to the devastating war against the nascent Israeli state that the Palestinians lost a decade later. Matthew Hughes‘s extensively researched new study … Read more here ➔
Posted in Book Reviews, Mandate Period, Zionism Debate
Tagged Arab Revolt, Book review, British Army
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Britain’s historic responsibility to the people of Palestine, Gaza and Israel
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 … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Project viewpoint, Historical, Mandate Period, Pre-Balfour Declaration, Zionism Debate
Tagged Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, Haycroft Commission, Palestine Mandate
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The U.S. Recognition of Israel, 14 May 1948. Part III: ‘A Near-Run Thing’
William M. Mathew 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 … Read more here ➔
Posted in Current Positions, Post-Mandate Period, Zionism Debate
Tagged Marshall, Recognition of Israel, Roosevelt, Truman
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The U.S. Recognition of Israel, 14 May 1948. Part II: Truman’s Belated Support
William M. Mathew 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 to recognise the new state of Israel within minutes of its creation? Our … Read more here ➔
Posted in Current Positions, Mandate Period, Zionism Debate
Tagged 1948, Marshall, Recognition of Israel, Roosevelt, Truman
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The U.S. Recognition of Israel, 14 May 1948. Part I: Roosevelt, Truman, Marshall: A Sequence of Contingencies
Part I: Uncertainties 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 of the nascent state of Israel, 14 May 1948. Neither, however, … Read more here ➔
Posted in Mandate Period, Zionism Debate
Tagged Israel, Marshall, Roosevelt, Truman, Zionism
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Book Review: Enemies and Neighbours – Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017 by Ian Black
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 … Read more here ➔
Posted in Book Reviews, Zionism Debate
Tagged 1917, British Mandate, Israel, Palestine, Zionism
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“The Jewish Question” in 19th century Europe
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 … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Christian Zionism, Evangelicals and Christian Zionism, Pre-Balfour Declaration, Zionism Debate
Tagged 1915, 1917, 19th Century, anti-semitism, antisemitism, Balfour, Christian Zionism, Dreyfus, Evangelicals, First World War, Hechler, Herzl, Israel, Jew, Jewish, jewish question, Palestine, pogroms, restorationism, Rothschild, Shaftesbury, Zionism
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Evangelicals, the Balfour Declaration and Zionism
By Roger Spooner When talking about the Balfour Declaration with a pastor from Bethlehem, he commented,’ the problems for the Palestinians didn’t start in 1917, they started in 1840′. Literal reading of the Bible which had developed in the 17th … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Christian Zionism, Current Positions, Evangelicals and Christian Zionism, McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, Zionism Debate
Tagged 1840, 19th Century, Balfour, Balfour Declaration, Evangelicals, Lloyd George, restorationism, Shaftesbury, Zionism
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Prophet of Doom: E.T. Richmond, Palestine 1920-1924
John Richmond Ernest Richmond ETR was a an architect who spent many years in the Arab World and was invited in 1920 by Sir Herbert Samuel to join the Palestine administration. His son has written about some of his writings … Read more here ➔
Posted in Mandate Period, Pre-Balfour Declaration, Zionism Debate
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The Balfour Declaration, 2 November 1917: A Fateful Improbability
Centenary Lecture to the History Group, The Norfolk Club, 14 September 2017 by William Mathew It is argued here that only a special conjuncture of chance and short-term circumstance made it possible for an effective pro-Zionist policy to be successfully … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Current Positions, Pre-Balfour Declaration, Zionism Debate
Tagged Balfour, Balfour Declaration, Lloyd George, Weizmann, Zionism
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An interview between Mr Balfour and Justice Brandeis, Paris 1919
Present: Mr. Balfour, Mr. Justice Brandeis, Lord Eustace Percy and Mr. Frankfurter 2 Mr. Balfour expressed great satisfaction that Justice Brandeis came to Europe3He said the Jewish problem (of which the Palestinian question is only a fragment but an essential … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Pre-Balfour Declaration, Zionism Debate
Tagged 1919, Balfour, Brandeis, League of Nations
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Different ways of seeing the Balfour Declaration – BBC Radio 4 “Sunday” 1st October 2017
“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 … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, News, Pre-Balfour Declaration, Zionism Debate
Tagged Balfour Declaration, BBC Radio 4 Sunday, Palestine, Zionism
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The 1929 Palestine Riots – A Conflicted Jewish Historiography by William M Mathew
Mathew compares the work of two Jewish historians on the long-term effects of the inter-communal violence and harsh response by British forces which rocked Palestine in 1929. Where their accounts overlap Mathew explores their markedly different approaches.Violence in Palestine in … Read more here ➔
Posted in Book Reviews, Mandate Period, Zionism Debate
Tagged 1929, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, Hope-Simpson, Palestine Mandate, Passfield, Shaw Commission
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Book Review: Part II The 1929 Palestine Riots – A Conflicted Jewish Historiography by William M Mathew
IV: Commissions & Reports; White Paper & Letter These, 1929-31 – from Shaw and Hope Simpson to Passfield and MacDonald – have been cited in the opening paragraph above. Hillel Cohen`s approach is merely to list them, largely without comment. … Read more here ➔
Posted in Book Reviews, Mandate Period, Resources, Zionism Debate
Tagged 1929, Balfour Declaration, Passfield
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Reclaiming the lost Jewish voices of the Balfour Declaration, by Robert Cohen
This article was part of Robert Cohen’s talk at the Balfour Project conference,’How will we mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration’ in Southwark Cathedral on November 5th 2016: A leading British Rabbi has written: “Zionism and Zionistic activities not … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Past, Zionism Debate
Tagged 1917, Balfour Declaration, Claude Montefiore, Lucian Wolf, Montagu
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Palestine and Britain 1917-1948: Competing Policies, Creative Commemoration
This talk was given at the Balfour Project conference in Southwark Cathedral on 5th November 2016 entitled: ‘How will we mark the Centenary of the Balfour Declaration’ By Dr Peter Shambrook Context: it is only in the context of the … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Christian Zionism, Mandate Period, McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, Pre-Balfour Declaration, Zionism Debate
Tagged 1915, 1917, Anglo-French Declaration, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, League of Nations, Palestine Mandate
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Book Review: Balfour, Weizmann and the Creation of Israel by Charles Glass
Charles Glass, writing in the London Review of Books in 2001, reviewed two books looking at the period of the British Mandate in Palestine. It was also published in the Guardian under the tile: The Mandate Years; colonialism and the … Read more here ➔
Posted in Book Reviews, Mandate Period, Zionism Debate
Tagged Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, Lord Curzon, Montagu, Weizmann, Zionism
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McMahon, Sykes, Balfour: Contradictions and Concealments in British Palestine Policy 1915-1917
by WILLIAM M. MATHEW Lecture given to the History Group of The Norfolk Club, 14 April 2016 to mark the centenary of the Sykes-Picot Agreement 1916 Abstract These three war-time initiatives are presented as part of a compressed, uncoordinated, two-year … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, Pre-Balfour Declaration, Zionism Debate
Tagged Contradictory Promises, Lloyd George, Lord Curzon, McMahon, McMahon Hussain, Picot, Sherif Hussein, Sykes, Zionism
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J.M.N. Jeffries` Palestine Deception: Modern Resonances
In a recent review article (New Middle Eastern Studies 5 [2015]) on , The Palestine Deception, 1915-1923: The McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, the Balfour Declaration, and the Jewish National Home. ed William Mathew Dr. Nadia Naser-Najjab of the Institute of Arab and … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Book Reviews, McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, Zionism Debate
Tagged 1922, 1923, McMahon Hussain, Palestine Mandate
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Balfour 1922-23: Fragile commitment and Zionist Response
By Dr William M Mathew Paper given at Balfour Project Annual Conference St. Chad`s College, University of Durham, 31 October 2015 In the limited time available I should like to make three basic points around this specific issue of fragility … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, Zionism Debate
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The Companion Guide to our film ‘Britain in Palestine 1917-1948’
The Companion Guide has been professionally written for us, and gives fascinating background to the history introduced in the film. To give you an idea of what is in it see the section on the Balfour Declaration. It has 83 … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Christian Zionism, Films, Pre-Balfour Declaration, Resources, Zionism Debate
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Christian Zionism’s flawed vision of Israel, by Rabbi Dow Marmur
My dictionary defines Zionism as “a movement for the re-establishment of a Jewish national homeland and state in Palestine.” This was realized in May 1948 when the State of Israel was established. Many Jews are Zionists and committed to the … Read more here ➔
Posted in Christian Zionism, Zionism Debate
Tagged Balfour, Balfour Declaration, Christian Zionism, Lloyd George, Palestinians
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Yitzhak Epstein: The Hidden Question
In 1907 Yitzhak Epstein, a Russian-born teacher who had settled in Palestine, published an article entitled “The Hidden Question” in the Hebrew periodical Ha-Shiloah. Its subject was the attitude of the Jews toward the Arabs of Palestine. “Among the grave … Read more here ➔
Posted in Zionism Debate
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Anti-Zionism in London’s Jewish East End, 1890-1948
Anti-Zionism in London’s Jewish East End, 1890-1948 A summary of Chapter 6 with this title in Brian Klug’s: Being Jewish and Doing Justice: Bringing Argument to Life, Vallentine Mitchell (2010) Brian Klug, being a philosopher, approaches this subject from a … Read more here ➔
Posted in Book Reviews, Zionism Debate
Tagged 1890, anti-semitism, Anti-Zionism, Ben-Gurion, Claude Montefiore, Communism, London's East End, Montagu, Zionism
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The Road to Balfour: The History of Christian Zionism
By Stephen Sizer Delivered at a conference arranged by the Balfour Project in association with the Church of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2nd November 2012 Introduction In this presentation we are going to trace some of the significant events and individuals that … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Christian Zionism, Evangelicals and Christian Zionism, Zionism Debate
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A scrap of paper that changed history
by Donald Macintyre Reproduced from an article: ‘The birth of modern Israel: a scrap of paper that changed history’ in the Independent of 26 May 2005 The term “living history” is a cliché that slips as easily from the lips … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Zionism Debate
Tagged Balfour Declaration, Leon Simon, Montagu, Zionism
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