‘Father’s Day’ 15 June 2025

Dear First Minister, Welsh Government & Senedd members.

For over half a century I have borne witness to the Palestinian Nakba of 1948.

I’m not a politician, but I am willing to address our Senedd on the theological and biblical background to the on-going tragedy that is Palestine today, both in Gaza and the West Bank.

Israel is a sovereign state, one of the UK’s ‘natural allies, a beacon of liberal values, a freedom- loving nation, and a “light to lighten the Gentiles” on the frontline of the wider struggle for civilization.’

The 2030 Roadmap for UK-Israel Bilateral Relations is a policy paper of 21 March 2023, a landmark document that goes beyond a previous ‘memorandum of understanding’ signed between our two countries in 2021. It appears to be more than a mere document, because it is described as a ‘Living Document’.

While I am aware that our Senedd has no role to play in the UK-Israel ‘strong and evolving defence relationship and military ties’ and likewise cannot comment on the secret military agreement signed in December 2020, I would like to know in what way you believe that the UK and Israel – and hence Wales and Israel – ‘complement each other’s strengths’?

I include a few possible areas of ‘mutual benefits’ from the ‘Roadmap’ for your comments:

• With the roadmap describing both countries as ‘a global force for good’, the plan is to build on the UK-IS ‘health-tech gateway’, launched in May 2020, in order to work together to tackle major global health-care challenges. Does the Senedd/Welsh Government envisage a role for itself in this global health challenge in 2025 and beyond?

• Does the Senedd/Welsh Government agree that it is ‘out of order’ for Welsh people to use the term apartheid vis a vis Israel’s dealings with the Palestinians?

• In what way does the Welsh Government and Senedd, see itself and organisations like chapels and churches/ the URDD/ Young Farmers/ Merched y Wawr & WI etc, deepening, strengthening and fostering the already friendly relations between the UK and Israel eg promoting more co-operation in the fields of culture, arts, higher education, sports, youth and exchange visits between institutions and organisations, as well as easing the mobility of talent between Wales and Israel?

I look forward to your comments and observations.

A few years before I was born, many believe that our Christian/Western culture died in Auschwitz.

I never imagined that I would bear witness to its burial amidst the rubble of Gaza, the tons and tons and tons of concrete dust its shroud.

My hope is that we, as a nation, will one day find out what we have become these last few years, and, amidst the rubble of Gaza, maybe, one day, soon, re-discover our humanity.

Yn enw ‘Rhyfel yr Oen’

Geraint ap

Geraint ap Iorwerth BA MPhil

For members not aware of the key role played by the Balfour Declaration of 1917 in the Palestinian Nakba of 1948, a few years ago I dramatized the official Government (H.M.G.)  documents, memoranda and letters of those in power both in Whitehall and Palestine 1917-1922.

Members who would like a copy of the script can contact me by Email for a copy of my ‘BALFOUR’S BETRAYAL’.

Iesu a’r Plant by Iranian artist Mohammad Ali Sanobari