Good evening, thank you so much for taking time out of what I know are your busy schedules to be here now. My thanks to Jenny Tonge for making this meeting possible; and I would like to thank three people without whom the book would not exist: Karl Sabbagh, my publisher; Ghada Karmi, who inspired the book; and my partner, Nancy Elan, who was my constant alter-ego during my research and without whom I surely would have given up.
My work is based principally on declassified source documents in the National Archives in Kew. When I have had to rely on published works, I have trusted established historians who cite first-hand sources. Everything I will say here tonight is based on such source material.
Our topic is of course the so-called "conflict" in Israel-Palestine, a tragedy that has dragged on for so long that it feels static, indeed almost normalised. But unlike other deadly conflicts, this one is wholly in our power to stop — "our" meaning the United States and Europe. It is in our power to stop it, because we are the ones empowering it.
We are now approaching the centennial of the British Original Sin in this tragedy, the Balfour Declaration. The British role in Palestine was a case of 'hit & run': The Balfour Declaration, in which the British gave away other people's land, was the hit; and thirty years later, Resolution 181 — Partition — was the run, leaving the Palestinians abandoned in a ditch.
Comment: Neti has promised a "crushing victory" over Hamas in Gaza: "Israel is 'light that will defeat darkness'." In order for one entity to be the forces of 'freedom, progress and light', it must create an adversary offending those very forces.
The more delusions rule, the more reality proves otherwise.