Balfour Declaration Centenary

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, for giving us this important opportunity to celebrate the immense progress achieved since the Balfour Declaration was made. How wonderful it is that our brothers and sisters of the Jewish faith once again have their historic home in an Israel that is prosperous, democratic and strong.

In preparing for this debate, I reflected on how indebted I am personally to a fine Jewish gentleman without whose orthopaedic skill in rebuilding my broken bones as a child I simply would not be here. Little did I know then of his escape from the Nazis on the very last train to leave Prague before the borders were closed in June 1939.

In contemplating the Balfour Declaration we should contemplate the alternative: a world without Israel. Celebrating this declaration is for me part of ensuring that the genocidal, anti-Semitic suffering of the 20th century is never again visited upon our world—a world to whom the Jewish people have revealed, and continue to give, as we have just heard, so much. They deserve a home. They deserve peace and recognition of Israel’s right to exist, to build on Balfour for many years to come.