At today’s Urgent Question on talks to de-escalate the violence in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, LFI parliamentarians pushed the UK government to demonstrate leadership to bring Israel and the Palestinians together in a peace process, with the goal of a negotiated two-state solution.
LFI vice-chair Diana Johnson MP
LFI vice-chair Dame Diana Johnson MP used her question to push the government to support the International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, some five years after the UK became the first country in the world to endorse the concept of the Fund, but following little real action since then. Diana asked the Minister whether he agreed that “people-to-people coexistence projects between Israelis and Palestinians represent the best opportunity for that consensus around peace in the absence of a political process?”, as well as asking what steps the government would take to make the Fund a reality.
LFI parliamentary supporter Florence Eshalomi MP
Later, LFI parliamentary supporter Florence Eshalomi MP called out the UK government’s failure to be proactive in encouraging Israel and the Palestinians to negotiate a two-state solution, pointing out the lack of UK leadership on the Middle East peace process, including no reference to a two-state solution in the 2030 Roadmap for UK-Israel Bilateral Relations agreed this week.