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Recent Articles
- BALFOUR IN THE LEVANT, EASTER 1925. Orates in Jerusalem, Tours Palestine, Flees Syria
- Responses to the HRW report on Apartheid and Persecution of Palestinians
- Tinderbox Q&A with Gillian Mosely, Robert Cohen and Tim Llewellyn
- Sophie Bridger on Education Under Occupation – Eyewitness Testimony from the West Bank
- Ban Ki-moon: US should back a new approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- Lord Cope – Speech to British Palestine Police Association Centenary Dinner
Tag Archives: British Mandate
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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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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Palestine and Britain: forgotten legacy of World War I that devastated the Middle East
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 … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Mandate Period
Tagged 1918, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, Palestine
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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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Britain Palestine Israel – 70 years on
Donate 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 … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Mandate Period, Past, Post-Mandate Period, Pre-Balfour Declaration
Tagged 1922, 1948, British Mandate, Israel, League of Nations, nakba, Palestine, Palestine Mandate, War of independence
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Book Review: Beyond the Balfour Declaration by Lord Leslie Turnberg
by John McHugo In Beyond the Balfour Declaration: The 100-Year Quest for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, (Biteback Publishing, 2017) Leslie Turnberg has tried to grapple with the difficult problem of achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Turnberg is a Labour life peer. … Read more here ➔
Posted in Book Reviews
Tagged 1917, 1922, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, McHugo, McMahon Hussain, Palestine, Turnberg
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Palestine 1917-2017: Reflections on a refugee’s story, my great-grandfather’s war diary and the legacy of Britain’s actions in Palestine.
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 … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Mandate Period
Tagged 1917, 1948, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, 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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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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Film of Britain in Palestine, 1917-1948
With Arabic and Hebrew subtitles The Balfour Project is pleased to announce the release of the film ‘Britain in Palestine 1917-1948’ Telling the story of 30 complex years in less than 20 minutes is a challenge, and so the narrative … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Films, News, Resources
Tagged 1917, 1948, Anglo-French Declaration, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, First World War, Lloyd George, McMahon Hussain
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Rescuing Balfour: Winston Churchill at the Colonial Office 1921-22, By William Mathew
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 … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, McMahon-Hussein Correspondence
Tagged 1921, 1922, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, League of Nations, McMahon Hussain, Palestine, Palestine Mandate, Weizmann, Zionism
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The McMahon promise to Hussein
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 … Read more here ➔
Posted in McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, Pre-Balfour Declaration
Tagged 1915, Anglo-French Declaration, British Mandate, Hussein Ibn Ali, Lebanon, McMahon, McMahon Hussain, Middle East, Palestine, Palestine Mandate
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Struggling to Maintain the Mandate’s Iron Cage, 1930 – 1947 by Peter Shambrook
Peter A. Shambrook presents the history of the British Mandate for Palestine in the period 1930-1947, highlighting its very negative outcomes for the Palestinian population. In doing so, Shambrook calls for Britain to accept responsibility for its past wrongdoings as … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration
Tagged 1930, British Mandate, Churchill, Palestine Mandate, Palestinian Rebellion, Peel Commission, Ramsay MacDonald, Weizmann, Zionism
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The Balfour Declaration and UK recognition of the Palestinian State….
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 … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration
Tagged 1917, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, Palestine, Palestine Mandate, Sacred Trust of civilisation
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Joseph Jeffries and the ‘Palestine Deception’, 1923, by William Mathew
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 … Read more here ➔
Posted in Book Reviews, McMahon-Hussein Correspondence
Tagged 1923, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, McMahon Hussain, Palestine, Sykes Picot, Zionism
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Debating Palestine and Israel – Book review by Jeremy Moodey
Dan Cohn-Sherbok and Mary Grey, Debating Israel and Palestine, (Exeter, Impress Books, 2014). It was George Orwell who wrote in his book 1984, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” As with the … Read more here ➔
Posted in Book Reviews, Current Positions
Tagged 19th Century, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Palestine Mandate, Zionism
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Contradictory Promises
See also Contradictory Promises by Dr Peter Shambrook where these promises are explored in more detail. 1915 The McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, • In 1915 Britain promised the Arabs that after the war they would be granted independence in their lands, in … Read more here ➔
Posted in Historical
Tagged 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1922, Anglo-French Declaration, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, Broken promises, Hussein Ibn Ali, McMahon, McMahon Hussain, Palestine Mandate, Sykes Picot
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Britain’s Secret Re-Assessment of the Balfour Declaration. The Perfidy of Albion, by John Quigley
John Quigley* President’s Club Professor in Law, Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States of America From the Journal of the History of International Law Revue d’histoire du droit international Volume 13, Number 2, 2011 … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration
Tagged !922 White paper, 1915, 1917, 1922, 1923, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, Churchill, Curzon, Duke of Devonshire, International Law, League of Nations, McMahon, Sacred Trust of civilisation, Victor Cavendish, Weizmann, Zionism
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The Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate, 1917–1923: British Imperialist Imperatives
By William M. Mathew ABSTRACT The article sets the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the final confirmation of Britain’s Palestine Mandate in 1923 within the context of national imperial concerns: in particular, anxieties over the security of the Suez Canal … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration
Tagged 1917, 1922, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, First World War, Lloyd George, Lord Curzon, McMahon, Middle East, Palestine, Sykes Picot, Weizmann
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Britain’s betrayal of the sacred trust in Palestine, Prof John Dugard
Extracts from a talk given by Professor John Dugard, at the Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine fringe meeting during the party’s annual conference in Brighton in September 2012. Let me now turn to Britain’s sacred trust British policy towards Palestine … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Current Positions
Tagged 1917, 1922, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, International Law, John Dugard, Middle East, Palestine, Palestine Mandate, Sacred Trust of civilisation
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Agreement Between Emir Feisal and Dr. Weizmann
3 January, 1919 Introduction Following the First World War, Emir Feisal, son of Sherif Hussein (Husayn) of Mecca, and the leader of the Arab movement, met in Aqaba with Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the head of the Zionist Commission to … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Historical, Resources
Tagged Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, Feisal, Hussein Ibn Ali, McMahon, McMahon Hussain, Middle East, Palestine, Sherif Hussein, Sykes Picot, Weizmann
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Palestine Mandate defeated 69 to 29, 1922
LORD ISLINGTON had given Notice to move, That the Mandate for Palestine in its present form is inacceptable to this House, because it directly violates the pledges made by His Majesty’s Government to the people of Palestine in the Declaration … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration
Tagged 1922, Balfour, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, Declaration, Lord Islington, Palestine Mandate, restorationism
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Biography: Leopold Amery by William D. Rubinstein
The drafter of the Balfour Declaration was a secret Zionist in what historian William Rubinstein states was “probably the most remarkable example of concealment of identity in twentieth-century British political history” “…Because of his increasingly significant political position, [Amery] … Read more here ➔
Posted in Biographies
Tagged 1917, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, First World War, Leopold Amery, Palestine, Sykes
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Chaim Weizmann by Mary Grey
Chaim Weizmann was born in Russia in 1874, in Motol, now Belarus, but then in the “Pale of Settlement”, that area of Russia to which the Jews had been confined since the time of Catherine the Great. From an early … Read more here ➔
Posted in Biographies, Resources
Tagged 1917, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, First World War, Jew, Palestine, Zionism
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Short biographies by Mary Grey
The War Cabinet (WW1) The creation of the War Cabinet undertook the supreme direction of the war effort. It was composed of David Lloyd George, the Prime Minister, Andrew Bonar Law, Lord Nathaniel Curzon, Alfred Milner, Arthur Henderson and Sir … Read more here ➔
Posted in Biographies
Tagged 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, Allenby, Asquith, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, Clayton, Curzon, First World War, Grey, Herbert, Hussein Ibn Ali, Lawrence, Lloyd George, McMahon, Milner, Montagu, Montifiore, Picot, Rothschild, Sacher, Samuel, Sokolow, Storrs, Sykes, Sykes Picot, Talaat Pasha, Weizmann, Wolf, Zaharoff
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A Reevaluation of the Balfour Declaration by Ashley Perry
Ashley Perry, editor of the Middle East Strategic Information project makes the case that the Balfour Declaration represented the definite intention of the British Government to create a Jewish state and that in the Mandate for Palestine this intention gained … Read more here ➔
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Historical
Tagged 1922 White Paper, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, Churchill, Faisal-Weizmann Agreement, General Smuts, Jewish National Home, Palestine Mandate
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Britain’s historical mandate. by Natasha Gill
A frank recognition of its past in the Middle East can give Britain a unique role in the peace process The reprimand of Israel by David Miliband, the foreign secretary, resonated sharply in an already difficult week for Israel. But … Read more here ➔
Posted in Current Positions
Tagged Arabs, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, Israel, nakba, Palestine, Palestine Mandate, Zionism
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