Labour Friends of Israel supports a negotiated two-state solution for two peoples; with Israel safe, secure and recognised within its borders; living alongside a viable, democratic and independent Palestinian state.
The two-state solution is the only means by which to guarantee Israel’s security and to preserve its precious identity as a Jewish and democratic state, as well as to satisfy the legitimate demand of the Palestinian people for self-determination and national sovereignty.
• The key priority is to assist the process of Palestinian statebuilding, including a political, security and humanitarian strategy for Gaza.
• We need to lay the civic society foundations for peace, just like we did in Northern Ireland in the decade leading up to Good Friday Agreement.
• We need to recognise and address the barriers to, and enemies of, peace and a two-state solution: security threats to Israel; settlement-building and extremist settlers; and the Palestinian Authority’s policy of incitement to violence and terrorism.
We want to support the government to:
DEFEND ISRAEL’S SECURITY
Britain should stand with Israel in the face of the security challenge posed by Iran and its proxy armies Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.
PROMOTE PEACEBUILDING
Britain should play a leading role in establishing and investing in the International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, which would bring together and leverage investment from the US, Europe and the Arab world to scale-up important, but grossly underfunded, peacebuilding work in Israel-Palestine that have been proven, as the International Fund for Ireland did so successfully, to foster “conflict-resolution” values and thus build constituencies for peace.
OPPOSE SETTLEMENT-BUILDING AND EXTREMIST SETTLER VIOLENCE
Britain should encourage Israel to remove illegal settlement outposts, cease settlement expansion outside major blocs along the 1967 Green Line and take strong action against extremist settler violence.
BUILD THE FOUNDATIONS OF A PALESTINIAN STATE
Britain should back a medium-term process to re-establish the authority of a reformed and strengthened Palestinian Authority, by tying funding to the PA to reforms which end incitement, corruption, authoritarianism and human rights abuses, including in areas such as curriculum reform and the replacement of the policy of payment of salaries to convicted terrorists and their families with a social welfare needs-based system open to all. At the same time, Hamas must be disarmed and can have no role in the governance of a future Palestinian state. We should encourage Israel to commit to a phased transfer of parts of Area C to Area B to expand the territory under the PA’s control and further Palestinian contiguity. And we should encourage Palestinian economic growth through incentivising private sector growth, women’s entrepreneurship and skills-based education.
ADDRESS THE PLIGHT OF GAZA
Britain should support the interim National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, which is led by non-partisan Palestinians and – alongside our international partners – support the return to governance of a reformed PA in Gaza. We should play a leading role in a Gaza reconstruction summit with partner countries to establish a massive package of funding to support Gaza’s immediate humanitarian needs. And we should offer British expertise in the fields of disarmament and demilitarisation.