Peace with justice, security and equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians

Posted: 4th July 2025

Peace with justice, security and equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians

Working together to press for accountability in Paletine/Israel

Dear Peter

The Britain Palestine Project seeks to shed light on Britain’s unique historic responsibility and duty to work to advance equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis.

Today, the state of Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank. On that there is broad consensus in the UK and elsewhere. Hamas’ attack of 7 October 2023 and its continued holding of hostages are also war crimes. The practical difference between the two is that our Government claims some influence over Israeli Government behaviour while it has proscribed Hamas and has no contact with it.

Unfortunately, there is no evidence to support our Government’s claim that it can influence Netanyahu. There is a reason for this lack: blind British acceptance of Israeli Government exceptionalism and impunity from legal accountability.

The Israeli Government’s effective denial of humanitarian aid access to Gaza stains the conscience of the world. The so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” – a pseudo humanitarian body cooked up in Jerusalem and backed by Washington to serve Israel’s war aims – should be scrapped, as the UN and over 130 charities and NGOs demand.  Israeli soldiers shoot to kill starving people queuing for food at GHF centres daily.

For decades, Britain and others have failed to hold Israel to account for its crimes, above all in Gaza but also in the West Bank, despite repeated rhetorical condemnations of Israel’s illegal settlement project and state-sponsored settler violence. In the face of the killing fields of Gaza, today this muffled response has reached an intolerable level.

While our Government claims that upholding international law is central to its mission, that is clearly not the case when it comes to Israel/Palestine. The question is: Why not?

Britain’s failure to recognise the state of Palestine serves to prolong the unlawful Israeli occupation of 1967. Recognition of Palestine now is necessary, but insufficient. Alone or with partners, Britain has multiple means to hold Israel to account. It should:

• suspend the UK/Israel Trade and Partnership Agreement until Israel ends the Occupation of 1967, thus giving a lead to the EU to suspend key components of the EU/Israel Association Agreement — in particular the tariff-free status of Israeli exports to EU member states, which constitute a significant share of Israel’s international trade and a major source of revenue.
• ban arms transfers to/from Israel, and suspend all bilateral military/military cooperation, including overflights and training
•  implement the provisional measures imposed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to prevent genocide in Gaza, challenging Israel’s blockade and preventing UNRWA from delivering life-saving aid
• comply immediately with the ICJ Advisory Opinion of July 2024 by:
  •  banning any British engagement with illegal Israeli settlements, including a ban on settlement trade in goods and services;
  • warning UK/Israeli dual nationals not to live in settlements;  
  • introducing a UK visa regime for settlers; and
  • warning dual nationals serving in the IDF that they may be liable to prosecution in the UK for the commission of war crimes in Gaza; and
• withdraw the 2030 Roadmap for UK/Israel bilateral relations.

The Britain Palestine Project is not alone in seeking accountability. It works in partnership with other like-minded organisations. Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JFJFP), a UK-registered organisation, have written to our Government, France and the EU urging specific actions. (See below.)

The Council for the Advancement of Arab British Understanding (CAABU) organised the 9 June letter to the Prime Minister signed by 96 Parliamentarians calling for sanctions on Israel for war crimes.

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) provides eye-witness testimony of Israeli army atrocities in Gaza.

The facts are known. Advocacy efforts are cutting through the welter of misinformation which asserts that Might is Right and the rule of law we all cherish does not matter. Together, we will continue to make our voice heard, seeking equal rights, mutual security and a just peace – for the good of Palestinians and Israelis alike, and consistent with our own universal values.

Our Government needs to heed us and uphold international law without fear or favour. We’ll keep pushing.

With best regards,

Sir Vincent Fean
Britain Palestine Project Trustee

Text of Letter from Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JJP)
 

16 June 2025

Jonathan Powell, National Security Adviser                                    
Stephen Hickey                                                                                
Director, Middle East & North Africa, FCDO
 
Dear Mr. Powell and Mr. Hickey,

The much predicted and feared major Israeli attack on Iran, with obvious support from Donald Trump, has occurred, and war is now raging. We are extremely concerned about the transfer of further UK fighter planes and air-to-air refuelling planes to the region, and by the lack of clarity as to what they will be used for. We believe the UK should under no circumstances assist Israel in its aggressive war, either offensively or defensively.    

All efforts should be concentrated on working with like-minded countries to secure a ceasefire as soon as possible.

It is essential to keep in mind the long-term context of this war.

Iran was abiding by the terms of the JCPOA, signed in 2015, for a full year after Donald Trump took the United States out of the agreement in 2018 and reimposed US nuclear-related sanctions. Iran only stopped abiding by the terms in 2019, when American pressure stopped western countries buying Iranian oil as part of Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy.

Since then, Iran has been enriching uranium beyond the stipulated limits for civilian use, although not to the level necessary for a weapon, and also breaking the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement in other ways. Nevertheless, the remedy is for the IAEA Board to report the issue to the Security Council, not for Israel to attack Iran.

Despite Iran being very nearly able to produce enough fissile material for a bomb, it would take another year for it to create the required delivery system. Therefore, there isn’t even the justification of urgency for the Israeli attack.

In March 2025, the American intelligence community assessed that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, nor had the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei authorised restarting the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.

The repeated Israeli claim that Iran having a nuclear weapon is an “existential threat” to Israel does not stand up to examination. It is well known that Israel has had nuclear weapons since the 1960s. It also has the “nuclear triad” delivery capability. One would have to believe that Iranian leaders are certifiably insane to believe they would risk a nuclear first strike against Israel.

Israel’s motive in being determined to be the only nuclear power the Middle East stems directly from its determination to continue occupying Palestinian land, preventing the emergence of a Palestinian state, and eventually creating Greater Israel. That policy has created Palestinian resistance, sometimes terrorist attacks, two intifadas and several wars against Gaza. The possibility of Arab countries, or Iran, being motivated to attack Israel in support of the Palestinians is ever-present. Israel therefore wants to hold the whip-hand of being the sole nuclear power so that it will never have to negotiate with the Arab countries or Iran and agree to end the occupation.

The Islamic Republic of Iran’s policy has always been to support Palestinian resistance to Israel, and therefore to support Hamas and Hezbollah through its Axis of Resistance. Therefore, the key to Iranian acceptance of Israel lies in Hamas accepting Israel. Hamas leaders offered that several times, providing Israel accepts a Palestinian state in the occupied territories. The last offer was made by Khaled Meshal in April 2008. He said “We agree to a [Palestinian] state on pre-67 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital with genuine sovereignty without settlements but without recognising Israel. We have offered a truce if Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, a truce of 10 years as a proof of recognition.” In 2017, Hamas created the new Principles and Policies document, which explicitly accepts that there can be a separate Palestinian state along the 1967 lines. It also, inter alia, identifies Israel only with Zionists, not Jews.

The right-wing Israeli governments in power since March 2009 never responded to either gesture. The Hams-Islamic Jihad attack on 7th October 2023 was a war crime and a crime against humanity as it was mainly against Israeli civilians, but its roots lie in that refusal to respond and in the five previous bombing assaults on Gaza. Eventually, the hard-line faction in Hamas gained ascendency over the moderate faction. As António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, said, to the Security Council on 24 October, “the deadly assault by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum… the Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation…”

The entirety of the terrible and dangerous situation we are now in – the Hamas assault on 7 October, Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, the war between Israel and Iran, and whatever unforeseen consequences there may yet be – has its roots in Israel’s long repression of the Palestinian people. Very strong sanctions will be necessary to compel Israel to change course. Recent experience with a few piecemeal sanctions against individuals has shown the world that much stronger action will be required.

Sanctions should include suspending tariff-free status of all Israeli imports; immobilising all Israel’s foreign exchange reserves held in London, as has been done to Russia; suspending all arms exports to Israel; restrictions on business services; and refusing entry to all Israeli government ministers and senior military officers. Continued failure to apply them will badly erode the credibility of the U.K.’s commitment to international law, perhaps fatally.

Yours sincerely,

Arthur Goodman
Parliamentary and Diplomatic Officer
Jews for Justice for Palestinians