Category Archives: News

With grateful thanks to Arab Digest, we reproduce below its newsletter of 23 Feb 2024 on the plight of the Palestinian people in Gaza and chaos in the Commons.  Arab Digest is a UK media company producing a daily newsletter … Continue reading →

By Sir Vincent Fean, Balfour Project Trustee The Independent, 18 February 2024 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered his military to plan the “evacuation” of Palestinian civilians from the Gazan city of Rafah, on the border with Egypt’s Sinai … Continue reading →

By Menachem Klein This article originally appeared in Logos I am not neutral. As a citizen of Israel, I hurt and cry with my fellow Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs, victims of Hamas’ barbaric attack. Struggle for national liberation does … Continue reading →

By Menachem Klein 2 Feb 2024 Hamas’s attack on 7 Oct and Israel’s retaliation against Hamas and Gaza Strip residents are unprecedented shocking events in their severity, repercussions and impact on both peoples’ collective memory. Only a few of those … Continue reading →

By Jonathan Cook 30 Jan 2024 Israel has long plotted the downfall of UNRWA, aware that it is one of the biggest obstacles to eradicating the Palestinians as a people There is an important background to the decision by the … Continue reading →

By James LandaleDiplomatic correspondent  Britain is ready to bring forward the moment when it formally recognises a Palestinian state, the foreign secretary has suggested. Lord Cameron said Palestinians had to be given a political horizon to encourage peace in the … Continue reading →

Media release: Helen Clark, member of The Elders and former Prime Minister of New Zealand and head of the UN Development Programme, issued the following comment urging UNRWA donors to immediately resume funding so that humanitarian assistance continues to reach Gazans … Continue reading →

Our Government is wrong, says the Balfour Project Our Government has suspended future UK funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which is by far the most important and effective provider of humanitarian and development assistance to Palestinian … Continue reading →

Statement: The Elders call for Israel to comply immediately with the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to protect Palestinians in Gaza from acts of genocide. The Elders also call for Israel’s allies to publicly affirm their … Continue reading →

30 January 2024

By Ronen Bergman and Yoav Zitun Published by Yedioth Ahronoth’s weekend supplement 7 Days, 12 Jan 2024. Translation by Dena Shunra for The Electronic Intifada, based on the print edition. On the morning of 7 Oct some of the most … Continue reading →

On January 9th 2024, an engaging event took place at Greencoat Place, hosted by Initiatives of Change (IofC UK) in collaboration with the Balfour Project. Peter Shambrook, the author of “Policy of Deceit,” was the central figure of the evening, … Continue reading →

By Marwan Muasher Published 15 January 2024 As Israel’s war in Gaza enters its fourth month, an intensifying debate has unfolded about who should rule the territory when the fighting stops. Some have suggested an Arab force, a notion already … Continue reading →

Sir Vincent Fean, Balfour Project Trustee, writes: Christopher Chessun, the Anglican Bishop of Southwark, visited Palestine from 14-18 January. His incisive statement is here and reproduced below. Bishop Chessun is a patron of this charity, and speaks for the Church of … Continue reading →

Professor Fayyad was in conversation with Professor Raphael Cohen-Almagor, director of the Middle East Study Centre (MESC) at Hull University; Sir Vincent Fean, Balfour Project Trustee and former Consul-General in East Jerusalem; and Sir Tom Phillips, MESC Advisory Board member … Continue reading →

Delivered on 12 January 2024 Mr. President, Thank you for this opportunity to address the Security Council on the humanitarian situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. For nearly 100 days, what has been unfolding in Israel and the … Continue reading →

I commend the article “War on Gaza: the West’s military action against the Houthis is doomed to fail” by Balfour Project trustee Richard Burden, published in Middle East Eye on 13 January. The article is here and reproduced below. No supporter of … Continue reading →

Permissive airstrikes on non-military targets and the use of an artificial intelligence system have enabled the Israeli army to carry out its deadliest war on Gaza, a +972 and Local Call investigation reveals.   By Yuval Abraham 30 Nov The … Continue reading →

By Omer Bartov 24 Nov Like many other people in Israel and across the world, my first reaction to the attack on 7 Oct was of shock and horror. But that initial reaction was accompanied by rage, not only at … Continue reading →

The leaders who oversaw Israel’s Gaza policy for 15 years are incapable of abandoning the erroneous ideas that collapsed on 7 Oct. By Menachem Klein, 26 Oct, 2023 (0riginally published in 972mag.com) In 1991, American neoconservatives — many of whom … Continue reading →

A personal view by a Palestinian from Gaza who grew up in the era of the resistance group’s rise to power. The author writes: Journalism and its practitioners will always carry an inherent point of view no matter how objective we … Continue reading →

Read the open letter on The Elders’ website Download the open letter  

The Palestinian-American lawyer, activist and academic Noura Erekat gave an address entitled “In This Moment” on 1 Nov 2023 to the Palestinian Festival of Literature in New York City. The Balfour Project is running this excerpt of her “address to … Continue reading →

UN leaders speak reason in the midst of madness By Andrew Whitley, Balfour Project Chair of Trustees In the midst of so much madness, misrepresentation and moral equivocation, it can be hard to find voices of sanity and reason. One … Continue reading →

By Daniel Levy, 13 Sept 2023 September 13, 2023, marks the 30-year anniversary of the signing of the Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles (DOP) on the White House South Lawn. What seemed like an auspicious moment in the history of the … Continue reading →

By Peter Oborne From Middle East Eye The anti-BDS Bill trashes the UK’s global reputation, yet Sunak’s morally broken government is pushing it through without serious scrutiny. On 11 and 12 Sept, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly received a hero’s … Continue reading →

Open letter calls on Jewish leaders to speak out against ‘ultimate purpose’ of PM’s judicial reforms – upholding ‘regime of apartheid’ By Chris McGreal, published in The Guardian on 15 August 2023. Hundreds of Israeli and American public figures have … Continue reading →

Report by Francesca Albanese Sir Vincent Fean, Balfour Project trustee, writes: Francesca Albanese is the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). She studies developments and reports regularly to the UN Human Rights Council, of … Continue reading →

Sir Vincent Fean writes: Last year the UN General Assembly voted to request that the International Court of Justice should deliver an advisory opinion which would consider the question of the legality of the Israeli military occupation of East Jerusalem, … Continue reading →

While the government can rely on national-religious identity to mobilise supporters, the opposition’s counternarrative suffers a serious weakness By Menachem Klein  on 24 July 2023. This article originally appeared in the Israeli +972 magazine The brewing “civil war” we are witnessing … Continue reading →

Sir Vincent Fean writes: The Balfour Project commends a new report by Save the Children on the plight of Palestinian children in Israeli military detention. Please click here to read the report. The report results from sustained, careful research. It … Continue reading →

By Andrew Whitley Often it requires taking a break away from a situation to be able to observe more distinctly dramatic changes taking place; changes that might otherwise pass unnoticed to a day-to-day observer. That was the case for The … Continue reading →

By Ian Portman, 22 June, 2023 In May this year, Palestinians were preparing for their 75th commemoration events marking the Nakba (disaster) which overcome their land before and during the 1948 war. Starting in the autumn of 1947, colonial settler … Continue reading →