One hundred Tory MPs sign Balfour centenary letter
Conservative politicians including the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary mark the anniversary of the historic declaration
One hundred Tory MPs and peers have signed the Conservative Friends of Israel’s Balfour Declaration centenary letter, published in The Daily Telegraph this week.
The parliamentarians joined Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson in “marking this anniversary with pride, and celebrating the friendship between the UK and Israel”.
The politicians say Lord Balfour’s letter was “one of the most important in history” exactly 100 years after the then foreign secretary Lord Arthur Balfour wrote to Lord Walter Rothschild, expressing the government’s support for a national Jewish homeland in Palestine.
Signatories of the CFI letter include CFI’s honorary president Lord Polak, Mark Harper MP, former Northern Ireland leader Lord Trimble, Theresa Villiers MP and Nadhim Zahawi MP.
In it, they say: “As the architects of the Declaration, the UK retains a key role to play in the Middle East Peace Process.”
The hundred parliamentarians add that they share their hope that this centenary year will be the year “we can finally see progress towards a lasting two-state solution that guarantees security and dignity for the Israeli and Palestinian people”.
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