Bertrand Russell Peace FoundationRussell1

Welcome to the website of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation.  Launched in 1963, the Foundation was established to carry forward Russell's work for peace, human rights and social justice. More than fifty years later, our work continues.

Here, you will also find information about our journal, The Spokesman, and links to our publications website Spokesman Books and our Online Bookshop

The Russell Tribunal on Palestine

Bertrand Russell on dividing wall Palestine Israel

On 4 March 2009, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine was launched at a press conference in Brussels chaired by Stéphane Hessel, Ambassador of France. The initiators of the Tribunal, Ken Coates, Chairman of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, Leila Shahid, General Delegate of Palestine to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg, and Nurit Peled, winner of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, discussed why they called its creation.

Speaking for the Tribunal’s Organising Committee, the former Belgian Senator Pierre Galand explained how it will work. Amongst more than a hundred international personalities who have given their support to the Tribunal, Ken Loach, Paul Laverty, Raji Surani, Jean Ziegler, François Rigaux, Jean Salmon and François Maspero were present in Brussels to give encouragement to this project.

In the tradition of the Russell Tribunal on War Crimes in Vietnam, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine is a citizens’ initiative which aims to reaffirm the primacy of international law as the basis for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and at raising awareness of the responsibility of the international community in the continuing denial of the rights of the Palestinian people.


Peter F. Cohen for Mondoweiss

‘I’m telling you that this massacre will happen again’: Lessons from the 2014 Russell Tribunal for the new intifada (Oct 12, 2015)

As we face the looming possibility of a Third Intifada and renewed Israeli military operations in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, this may be a good time to recall the findings of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RToP) almost exactly one year ago and their implications for a future Israeli military action against the Palestinian population. - See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2015/10/massacre-tribunal-intifada


Russell Tribunal finds evidence of incitement to genocide crimes against humanity in Gaza - September 25th 2014

The Russell Tribunal on Palestine's Emergency Session on Israel's Operation Protective Edge held yesterday in Brussels has found evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes of murder, extermination and persecution and also incitement to genocide.

The Jury (1) reported: 'The cumulative effect of the long-standing regime of collective punishment in Gaza appears to inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about the incremental destruction of the Palestinians as a group in Gaza.'

'The Tribunal emphasises the potential for a regime of persecution to become genocidal in effect, In light of the clear escalation in the physical and rhetorical violence deployed in respect of Gaza in the summer of 2014, the Tribunal emphasises the obligation of all state parties to the 1948 Genocide Convention ‘to take such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide.’

The Jury heard evidence from eyewitnesses to Israeli attacks during the Gaza war 2014 including journalists Mohammed Omer, Max Blumenthal, David Sheen, Martin Lejeune, Eran Efrati and Paul Mason, as well as surgeons Mads Gilbert, Mohammed Abou Arab, Genocide Expert Paul Behrens, Col Desmond Travers and Ivan Karakashian, Head of Advocacy and Defence for Children International.

In terms of the crime of incitement to genocide, the tribunal received evidence 'demonstrating a vitriolic upswing in racist rhetoric and incitement' during the summer of 2014. 'The evidence shows that such incitement manifested across many levels of Israeli society, on both social and traditional media, from football fans, police officers, media commentators, religious leaders, legislators, and government ministers.'

Read the full summary of findings at http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com/en/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Summary-of-findings-1.pdf

Notes
(1) Jury members: http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com/en/sessions/extraordinary-session-brussels/meet-the-jury

Photo from Facebook Page (see below for details).

CONTACT
Email: pressRTOP@gmail.com
Ewa Jasiewicz 0032 487 384 948 (English, Polish and Arabic)
Katarzyna Lemanska 0032 489 04 48 22 (French and Polish)
www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com/en/
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Twitter: @RussellTribunal

Russell Tribunal on Palestine - NYC October 6–7, 2012

Eyewitness at the New York Session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine by Tony Simpson

READ FULL REPORT - PDF

The executive summary of the findings of the New York session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine are now available. You can also download PDF version. (A full report will be issued by the end of this month.)


Message to New York Session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine from the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation
Bertrand Russell died on 2 February 1970, in his 98th year. Two days earlier he had composed a message to the International Conference of Parliamentarians, who were about to meet in Cairo whilst Israeli air raids reached deep into Egyptian territory. Russell’s message was read to the assembled parliamentarians on the day after his sudden death. He had remarked that:

‘The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was “given” by a foreign Power to another people for the creation of a new State. The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently homeless. With every new conflict their numbers have increased. How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty? It is abundantly clear that the refugees have every right to the homeland from which they were driven, and the denial of this right is at the heart of the continuing conflict. No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse from their own country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate? A permanent just settlement of the refugees in their homelands is an essential ingredient of any just settlement in the Middle East.’

(See more)


The Russell Tribunal on Palestine can promote peace, truth and reconciliation - article by Desmond Tutu and Michael Mansfield, guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 November 2011


London session, November 2010
The second international session of the RToP took place in London, in November of 2010. It examined International corporate complicity in violations of international law arising from Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian land, control of and exploitation of natural resources and crops, domination of trade and infrastructure.

For the full details of this session see the Russell Tribunal's web page Video of London Proceedings.