Richard Falk is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, and Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor's Chairman of the Board of Trustees. Falk has published extensively with multiple books written about international law and the United Nations. John Dugard is a South African professor of international law. His main academic specialisations are in Roman-Dutch law, public international law, jurisprudence, human rights, criminal procedure and international criminal law. He has served on the International Law Commission, the primary UN institution for the development of international law, and has been active in reporting on human-rights violations by Israel in the Palestinian territories. Michael Lynk is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada, and was the United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur for the human rights situation in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967.
Matthew Teller’s “Nine Quarters of Jerusalem: A New Biography of the Old City” (Profile Books, 2022) was named a Book of the Year by the Daily Telegraph. Matthew writes for the BBC, Guardian, Independent, Times, Financial Times and other global media. He has produced and presented documentaries for BBC Radio 4 and World Service, and has reported for Radio 4’s ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ from around the Middle East and beyond. He is the author of several travel guides, including the Rough Guide to Jordan. His previous book was "Quite Alone: Journalism from the Middle East 2008–2019".
Ambassador (ret.) Ilan Baruch is chairperson of the Policy Working Group (PWG), an Israeli advocacy team focusing on policy issues pertaining to the achievement of peace between Israel and Palestine based on the two-state paradigm. PWG members are all volunteers and come from senior diplomatic, academic, political, media and human rights backgrounds. On March 1st 2011, Baruch resigned from the Israeli Foreign Ministry on grounds of principle after a 36-year diplomatic career. In multiple media interviews, Baruch explained that his resignation came in the wake of Israel’s departure from its decade-long commitment to the two- state solution. Baruch’s last posting overseas was Ambassador of Israel in South Africa (2005-2008) as well as in Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. Ashraf Al-Ajrami is the Director of Damour Company for Community Development; head of the Damour Advocacy team, seeking to increase the resilience of deprived Palestinian communities and build a just peace. Born 1961. He is the former Minister of Prisoners Affairs in the Palestinian Authority (PA), 2007-09, and former Director of Israeli Affairs, PA Information Ministry. Imprisoned in Israel, 1984-96. He is a member of the Committee for Interaction with Israeli Society and a peace activist.
Matthew Hughes is Chair in military history at Brunel University London. His most recent book Britain’s Pacification of Palestine: the British Army, the Colonial State and the Arab Revolt, 1936-39 came out with Cambridge University Press in 2019. He is currently working on a project examining British military force on Borneo at the end of empire, 1962-66.
Ray Dolphin worked in the West Bank and Gaza for over 30 years, most recently for the UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), where he was Senior Analyst. In addition to numerous UN reports, his book ‘The West Bank Wall: Unmaking Palestine’ was published by Pluto Books in 2006 and he collaborated with Magnum photographer Joseph Koudelka for the photo-book, ‘Wall’, published by Aperture in 2013.
Author Raja Shehadi in conversation with journalist Tim Llewellyn about his new book We Could Have Been Friends my Father and I Raja Shehadeh is a lawyer and writer and the founder of the pioneering Palestinian human rights organisation Al Haq. Shehadeh is the author of several acclaimed books published by Profile Books including the Orwell Prize-winning Palestinian Walks, as well as Strangers in the House; Occupation Diaries; Language of War, Language of Peace; A Rift in time; Where the Line is Drawn and his most recent book Going Home A Walk Through Fifty Years of Occupation. He lives in Ramallah Palestine.
Please join us for a 45 minute recording of our webinar with Layla Moran MP. Layla, our chair Andrew Whitley and trustee John McHugo will launch the Balfour Project booklet recording our 2022 conference “Abandoning Palestine: the end of the British Mandate and our continuing responsibility”. The booklet is available to download here. If you would like a hard copy posted to you, we would appreciate a donation to cover postage. Please email diana@balfourproject.org with the address you would like the booklet posted to.
Omar Karmi, a Palestinian-British journalist, and Tamir Sorek, an expert on football in Palestine-Israel, discuss the Palestinian phenomenon at the 2022 World Cup, the reactions worldwide, and the game and players in Israel-Palestine.
The world turns to Bethlehem during Christmas, but they have a fairytale image of the little town. However, this is a real community with real challenges. This webinar gives an insight into the reality and challenges of Palestinians and Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land. Revd Dr Munther Isaac is a Palestinian Christian pastor and theologian. He now pastors the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem. He is also the academic dean of Bethlehem Bible College, and is the director of the highly acclaimed and influential Christ at the Checkpoint conferences.
All views and resources are those of the Fellows and speakers alone and not necessarily representative of the Balfour Project.
Palestinian author and journalist Dr. Ramzy Baroud discusses the reasons behind Israel’s lack of accountability to international law. While many countries, especially in the Global South, are held accountable to United Nations resolutions and to international humanitarian laws, Israel remains untouched. The role of the UK, past and present. What will it take for the Palestinians to achieve justice? Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is ‘Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak out’. His other books include ‘My Father was a Freedom Fighter’ and ‘The Last Earth’. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net
Danielle Bett is Yachad’s Director of Communications. Prior to joining Yachad, Danielle worked as the Jewish Leadership Council’s Scotland Manager. She has worked on several interfaith and antiracism initiatives. She’s also worked closely with the Israeli community in Scotland, having founded the Scottish Israeli Cultural Association – a non-political non-religious initiative for Israelis living in Scotland. She has a degree in International Relations and Spanish from the University of St. Andrews. Danielle is Scottish-Israeli and grew up in Israel.
In anticipation of the failure of the Israeli-Palestinian talks convened by the US Secretary of State John Kerry in 2014, Sam Bahour and Dr Tony Klug called for a new international strategy to replace failed peace negotiations, based on a vision of the endgame and the principle of equality. In a co-authored article, they proposed that, after half a century, Israel should be required to choose between recognizing a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank and Gaza within a brief deadline or granting full and equal citizenship rights to everyone within its jurisdiction until there is a solution. In this webinar, they will explain how they individually and collectively arrived at this proposal and what they believe its merits to be.
Israel’s Supreme Court has ruled that over 1,000 Palestinians can be forcibly evicted from their homes in Masafer Yatta, a community in the South Hebron Hills. Write to the Government to help stop this flagrant eviction of people from their home. Enter your postcode and see the letter – send it to your MP in one click! Becca Strober is a former soldier originally from Philadelphia. She is the Director of Education at Breaking the Silence
with Lana Ramadan from Save the Children, Ramallah and lawyers Jude Lanchin and Tareq Shrourou Lana Ramadan is the Advocacy and Campaigns Senior Office at Save the Children International oPt country office. Lana has extensive technical expertise and knowledge on the detention file in the oPt context. She worked for several Palestinian human rights organizations before joining SCI, including Addameer Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association as well as Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights. Lana has a Master’s Degree in Human Rights from the London School of Economics and Political Science, as well a BA in International Law and Human Rights from the Al-Quds Bard College. Jude Lanchin qualified as a solicitor in 1994, after a career in community-based work. For a number of years, she worked with the young people on the North London Broadwater Farm Estate who were charged after the 1985 riot. She subsequently established and ran a community project in Islington for former prisoners. Tareq Shrourou is Executive Director & Principal Lawyer of Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights (LPHR), a UK legal charity that works on legal projects to protect and promote Palestinian human rights. Before joining LPHR as its first executive director, Tareq worked as a solicitor specialising in asylum and human rights law, and co-managed the public legal advice service of the UK human rights organisation, Liberty. He holds an LLM in Public International Law from King’s College London.
Ali Awad is a 22 year-old activist from the village of Tuba in the South Hebron Hills. Becca Strober is a former soldier originally from Philadelphia. She is the Director of Education at Breaking the Silence.
Online talk given in March2022. Abbas Milhem is the current Executive Director (since 2014) of the Palestinian Farmers’ Union, providing technical guidance and full supervision on project development and implementation processes for the 14 branches of the Union across the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Abbas previously worked with the Sudan Civil Society and Youth Participation (CSDY) Program as a Country Director for Sundan, the International Republican Institute (IRI) Sudan, Arab-Americare Foundation, Health, Development, Information, and Policy Institute (HDIP), Palestinian Center for Peace and Democracy (PCPD), and the Palestinian Child Cultural Center. Abbas has a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from Bethlehem University.
Online talk given in February 2022 Bashir Bashir is associate professor in the department of sociology, political science and communication at the Open University of Israel and a senior research fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. His primary research interests are nationalism and citizenship studies, liberalism, democratic theory, decolonization and the politics of reconciliation. Among other numerous publications, he is the co-editor of The Holocaust and Nakba: A New Grammar of Trauma and History (Columbia University Press, 2018); and The Arab and Jewish Questions: Geographies of Engagement in Palestine and Beyond (Columbia University Press, 2020). His writings have appeared in English, Hebrew, Arabic, Italian, and German. Bashir's Publications: Interrogating Modernity and Egalitarian Binationalism in Palestine/Israel The Holocaust and the Nakba: A New Grammar of Trauma and History The Arab and Jewish Questions: Geographies of Engagement in Palestine and Beyond
Online talk given in February 2022 Rula Jamal LLM - Head of Monitoring and Documentation at Al-Haq Dr Susan Power - Head of Legal Research and Advocacy at Al-Haq In 2021, the government of Israel designated al-Haq a 'terrorist' organisation, a decision condemned by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and B'tselem.
Wafa Dakwar - Programme Manager, Beirut, Medical Aid for Palestinians Rohan Talbot - Advocacy and Campaigns Manager, London, Medical Aid for Palestinians