Today’s FCDO orals session saw LFI parliamentarians push the government on a number of policy issues. LFI parliamentary supporter and former LFI chair Andrew Gwynne MP asked the foreign secretary about UK support for the International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, noting that it is now five years since the UK Read more…
Saudi Arabia has reportedly asked the United States to approve the development of a civilian nuclear programme in exchange for the kingdom normalising relations with Israel. The demand is the latest in a series of asks put to the US from Riyadh, though such a deal remains “very far off”, the Times Read more…
The Labour frontbench has today reiterated the party’s support for UK involvement in the International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, a longstanding LFI campaign goal. Responding to a debate in the House of Lords on Israeli-Palestinian peace, Labour’s Lords FCDO spokesperson Lord Collins highlighted the importance of “economic development and Read more…
A number of LFI peers have this evening taken part in a debate on ‘calming the violence and build a lasting peace between the government of Israel and the Palestinian people’ in the House of Lords. LFI Lords chair Baroness Ramsay reminded colleagues of how Iran’s support for terrorism in Read more…
Israeli president Isaac Herzog has praised a summit involving the biggest business delegation from the Gulf which “would have been pure fantasy a few years ago”. Herzog formally opened the OurCrowd summit, the biggest investor event in the Middle East for start-up companies, saying he was particularly glad to see Read more…
Recent violence in the West Bank between the IDF and Palestinian militant groups has witnessed small numbers of young Palestinian men take up arms against Israel in defiance of the Palestinian political leadership. A number of newly emerging groups, many with fluid and overlapping affiliations, have emerged which lack clear Read more…
An El Al flight from Tel Aviv to Bangkok become the first Israeli airliner to cross over Oman’s airspace on Sunday night, three days after the Gulf state opened its skies to aircraft from all countries, including the Jewish state. The journey to Thailand, which would normally take 10.5 hours, Read more…
LFI vice-chair Catherine McKinnell MP has written the below article for JewishNews. Click here to read the original. Last week, I travelled to Israel for the first time as part of a delegation organised by Labour Friends of Israel. As we heard repeatedly, our trip comes at a time when the Read more…
More than half of the Israeli public would like to see a meeting between prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, according to a poll commissioned by the Geneva Initiative Israel NGO. When asked whether Israel should enter political talks with the PA, 52.8 percent said yes, Read more…
Saudi Arabia will not normalise ties with Israel without progress towards a two-state solution with the Palestinians, the kingdom’s top diplomat asserted last week. The comments by Prince Faisal bin Farhan al Saud, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, followed reported discussion of the topic between Israeli prime minister Read more…
The Moroccan military announced this week that it had agreed to strengthen military cooperation with Israel, including in intelligence and cybersecurity, following defence meetings in Rabat. The two countries “agreed to further strengthen cooperation and expand it to other areas, including in intelligence, air defence and electronic warfare”, a Read more…
LFI parliamentary supporter Kim Leadbeater has today written to prime minister Rishi Sunak to push him to pledge UK participation in the International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, a longstanding LFI campaign goal. The letter referenced Sunak’s comments to Conservative Friends of Israel in December 2022, in which he committed to Read more…