Tag Archives: israel

Israel/Palestine: trying to find some balance

By Charles Beaumont | Fri 1st February 2013 - 2:21 pm

Israeli children visit Palestinian village of Tuwani and participate in bilingual activities together - Some rights reserved by delayed gratficationWriting about Israel and Palestine is a bit like that bit in Great Expectations when Pip asked whether it was a good idea to lend money to a friend. The cynical Mr Wemmick responds “choose your bridge and pitch your money into the Thames over the centre arch”. Or put another way, don’t waste your time.

I think that, at our best, Liberal Democrats are fair-minded people who try to accept that most arguments have two sides. So what follows is not my opinion on who is right, but five things that have

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Joe Otten

LibLink: Paul David Evans – The Holocaust and David Ward MP

By Joe Otten | Sat 26th January 2013 - 3:14 pm

We carried the news yesterday that David Ward MP had, while marking Holocaust Memorial Day, made comments linking the holocaust to Israeli policy in the occupied territories.

Paul David Evans, who has worked for the Holocaust Educational Trust, examines this commonly-made comparison.

“… is it possible to criticise Israel without being accused of antisemitism, some activists mused on Lib Dem Voice? The answer is that, yes, it’s remarkably easy to criticise Israel without being accused of being a racist. The trick is not to frame your criticism in terms of glaringly obvious

…

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Mark Valladares

Has it all gone Jenny Tonge for David Ward?

By Mark Valladares | Fri 25th January 2013 - 11:56 am

Gentle reader, I appear to have received some flak for writing this – quite possibly merited. So, I’ve tried to edit it for clarity…

David WardA press release from the office of David Ward MP reached Liberal Democrat Voice yesterday;

“Bradford East MP, David Ward, has criticised Israel on the day he has signed a Book of Commitment in the House of Commons, in doing so pledging his commitment to Holocaust Memorial Day and honouring those who died during the Holocaust and in subsequent genocides.

Sunday January 27th will mark the 68th anniversary of the …

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Tim Purkiss

Opinion: Israel/Palestine – the current state of the ‘peace process’

By Tim Purkiss | Fri 14th December 2012 - 11:22 am

At 1900 GMT on Wednesday 21st November a ceasefire came into place between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip which, it was hoped, would signal at least a temporary halt to the bloodshed. Sadly, this ceasefire looks little more likely to last than previous ones have done and it would seem to be a good moment to reflect on the latest tragic and depressing episode in the Middle East and the ‘peace process.’

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Also tagged and | 36 Comments
Joe Bourke

Opinion: A Comprehensive Middle East Peace Settlement

By Joe Bourke | Wed 28th November 2012 - 1:10 pm

Simon Hughes said this year,  “We are near to the end of the opportunity of being able to get a peaceful two-state solution because of the extent of the settlements. The separation of Gaza from the West Bank and the increasing encroachment of the settlements mean that an alternative to the two-state model must be explored. We need to be honest and realistic about having a Plan B and a Plan C as well as a Plan A, as an international community.”

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Geoffrey Payne

Will Israel attack Iran, and will this break the Coalition?

By Geoffrey Payne | Fri 28th September 2012 - 3:52 pm

Although not widely reported in the British media, there is a build up of expectation that Israel will attack Iran. It amazes me that this was barely discussed at our recent Brighton conference. There were two motions on this submitted for conference but both with rejected by Federal Conference Committee and, perhaps as a consequence, there were no foreign policy motions debated at conference.

To raise the question I had to wait until Tuesday when there were two Centre Forum fringe meetings on foreign policy. Neither of the fringe meetings was specifically on Iran, but the question was asked about what …

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 29 Comments
Martin Horwood

Martin Horwood MP writes… Why Nick Clegg’s response to Jenny Tonge was right

By Martin Horwood | Wed 14th March 2012 - 9:23 am

The controversy surrounding Jenny Tonge’s resignation from our party in the House of Lords has attracted a lot of comment online. I’m co-chair of the parliamentary party’s international affairs committee (although writing here in a personal capacity) and I think the stance which Nick took as leader was right.

Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine – for whom I have a great deal of time – have suggested that Jenny’s ‘intention was to imply that Israel’s wilful failure to uphold and respect the human rights of Palestinian Muslims and Christians is behaviour which is likely to lead to its …

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Ed Fordham

Opinion: Handling Israel/Palestine issues can be difficult, but…

By Ed Fordham | Tue 6th March 2012 - 1:35 pm

I can still remember a night in 2009 when our canvass team came back from a night out on the doorsteps asking “Who is Jenny Tonge? We have just been canvassing and had the most awful time over this person who apparently is a Liberal Democrat…” I explained calmly and with a wry smile that Jenny was a former MP, now member of the House of Lords, that she held strong views and was not afraid to voice them. “But these residents are not going to vote Liberal Democrat because of the views she articulates,” said one of the canvassers. It was not a one-off incident.

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Also tagged and | 32 Comments
The Voice

Tonge: Clegg acted “very hastily and ill-advisedly” in issuing apologise-or-resign ultimatum

By The Voice | Sat 3rd March 2012 - 12:41 pm

Here’s the Press Association report of Baroness (Jenny) Tonge’s BBC interview following her resignation this week over controversial remarks about the future of Israel:

Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Tonge has claimed her party leader Nick Clegg acted “hastily” in quickly disowning her after she said Israel “would not be there forever”. She was forced to give up the party whip after the Deputy Prime Minister told her to apologise or resign hours after her comments to students at Middlesex University were revealed.

During a talk at the university, she claimed Israel would “reap what it has sown” if the United States

…

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Stephen Tall

Jenny Tonge resigns Lib Dem whip over controversial “Beware Israel” remarks

By Stephen Tall | Wed 29th February 2012 - 6:08 pm

A quick follow-up to our story, Jenny Tonge resigns…

Baroness (Jenny) Tonge has this afternoon resigned the Lib Dem whip after coming under intense pressure following the widespread reporting of remarks she made last week declaring that Israel “will reap what they have sown” once the USA gets “sick of giving £70bn a year to Israel to support what I call America’s aircraft carrier in the Middle East”.

It is by no means the first time Baroness Tonge has landed herself in hot water for her out-spoken views on Israel:

  • She was sacked by then leader Charles Kennedy as the Lib

…

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Nick Thornsby

First Jewish ambassador to Israel has divided loyalties, says Labour MP

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 1st December 2011 - 7:28 pm

The Jewish Chronicle reports:

A Labour MP has caused outrage by suggesting that Britain’s first Jewish ambassador to Israel has divided loyalties because he has “proclaimed himself to be a Zionist”.

Challenged by the JC to clarify his comments about Matthew Gould, who took up the post last year, Paul Flynn, the Labour MP for Newport West, said ambassadors to Israel had not previously been Jewish “to avoid the accusation that they have gone native”.

Britain needed, he said, “someone with roots in the UK can’t be accused of having Jewish loyalty”.

The Foreign Office and MPs from across the political spectrum

…

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Matthew Harris

Opinion: How not to further the Palestinian cause

By Matthew Harris | Fri 2nd September 2011 - 2:55 pm

The other day at a London Underground station, I saw a man who was visibly distressed. A 50-something Asian gentleman in a suit, he’d been waiting for his wife when a man asked him to move out of the way on a narrow path. Except he hadn’t just asked him to move – he’d abused him racially and pushed against him.

I could see that he was upset, so I stopped and he told me what had happened. Imagine, however, if, instead of expressing sympathy, I had told him that he was in the wrong for having been in someone’s way …

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Daniel Furr

Opinion: a Palestinian state cannot wait

By Daniel Furr | Tue 7th December 2010 - 11:26 am

The superstition and messianic belief, that Israel was founded on in 1948, has helped to establish an apartheid esque society. Now I do not deny the existence of Israel, of course not. Many nations have been founded on injustices but Israel’s demagogic lie has done enormous damage. The schism, which can be summarised by the phrase “A land without a people for a people without a land” suggested that the people in Palestine did not really exist or were a coherent genuine people. Refusal to acknowledge the Palestinian ethnic group has been a problematic area for Israel, especially since …

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Kerry Hutchinson

Opinion: The automaton body-politic

By Kerry Hutchinson | Tue 10th August 2010 - 11:20 am

Not for nothing was England once known as ‘Perfidious Albion’ – it would change policy stances more often than a modern quick-change model on a catwalk. Ah yes, those days when foreign policy was as reliably firm as blancmange in a microwave set on high. But not nowadays, of course.

No, Foreign Secretaries and their FCO policy officials who devise and draft policy these post-Great Game days can be relied upon to issue policy that is robustly embedded in the nine points of policy-making as set down by the Cabinet Office and the Better Regulation Executive (BRE). To which all Government …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 24 Comments
NewsHound

LibLink: Lynne Featherstone calls for peace in Jewish Chronicle

By NewsHound | Sun 25th April 2010 - 10:35 am

Lynne Featherstone has a balanced piece in the Jewish Chron this week:

In Hornsey & Wood Green in North London, there is a strong pro-Israel lobby and a strong pro-Palestinian lobby. When Jenny Tonge made her disgraceful and ignorant comments in the JC, calling for an inquiry into Israel taking organs in Haiti, I got emails from the pro-Israel lobby saying that the Liberal Democrats were pro-Palestinian.

When Nick Clegg then rightly sacked Baroness Tonge from the front bench, I received emails claiming that he had only done so because the “Zionist conspiracy” had got to him. Both were symptomatic of the

…

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Iain Roberts

Daily View 2×2: 24 March 2010

By Iain Roberts | Wed 24th March 2010 - 8:05 am

It’s budget day, and with the General Election just six weeks away, the big question is whether Darling will pull something out of the hat to make us all feel happier (in the short term, at least) or whether – as he’s suggested so far – it’ll be steady as she goes.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

2 Big Stories

The clamour to ban mephodrone continues

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Mark Pack

Daily View 2×2: Jenga special

By Mark Pack | Sun 21st March 2010 - 9:00 am

It’s Sunday. It’s 9am. It’s time for jenga, but first the news.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

  • A failure of scrutiny on digital bill: Peter Black blogs about the letter signed by, amongst others, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidates Bridget Fox and Julian Huppert. Danger of Parliament rushing through legislation without proper debate? Who would have thought it.
  • Elementary errors: Giles Wilkes on the important difference between a stock and a flow. More interesting and useful than I’ve made it sound.

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

2 Big Stories

BA fights to limit the impact of cabin crew strike

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NewsHound

LibLink … Nick Clegg et al: An appeal for the victims of Gaza

By NewsHound | Sun 27th December 2009 - 3:30 pm

Nick Clegg is a lead signatory for a letter in today’s Observer calling on the international community to exert pressure on Israel to abide by UN security council resolution 1860 and bring an end to the suffering of the people of Gaza. Here’s what it says:

One year on from Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli government continues to imprison 1.5 million Palestinians and prevent the rebuilding of its shattered infrastructure.

Israel’s blockade of Gaza, described by the UN fact-finding mission as “collective punishment”, stops reconstruction materials and humanitarian aid from reaching those who so desperately require it.

As a result

…

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NewsHound

LibLink … Clegg on Gaza

By NewsHound | Thu 24th December 2009 - 2:01 pm

Writing in the Guardian two days ago, Nick Clegg highlighted Palestinian suffering in Gaza:

On 27 December last year, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, an overwhelming exercise of military force aimed at silencing the Hamas rockets which had terrorised Israeli towns and villages. The immediate effects of the invasion are well known: 1,400 Palestinians dead, mostly civilians, with many more wounded or displaced; 10 Israeli soldiers and three civilians killed, dozens more injured; and thousands of families in southern Israel forced to flee to other parts of the country. The rocketfire from Gaza into Israel has slowed but

…

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Mark Pack

Daily View 2×2: 20 September 2009

By Mark Pack | Sun 20th September 2009 - 7:00 am

It’s Sunday. It’s 7am. It’s time for the Daily View, today with a special Trojan Horse supplement.

2 Big Stories

Obama attempts to revive Middle East peace efforts

So reports the BBC:

Mr Obama will first hold separate talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the White House says.

The three men, who will be in New York for the UN General Assembly, will then hold joint discussions.

The move comes after US envoy George Mitchell’s latest round of shuttle diplomacy ended without agreement.

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The Voice

Nick Clegg: angry liberal

By The Voice | Fri 18th September 2009 - 7:25 pm

Drama and political passion over at the Jewish Chronicle, where Nick Clegg vows to Martin Bright that he will not silence controverial Lib Dem peer Baroness (Jenny) Tonge, whose outspoken comments on the Israeli-Palestine conflict have in the past landed her in hot water.

Nick Clegg is angry. No, it’s beyond angry. Incandescent almost gets it, but that still doesn’t capture the full fury of the man as he leans forward from his chair in the Liberal Democrat leader’s office in the House of Commons.

The accusation that Mr Clegg had failed to honour his commitment to act against the pro-Palestinian Lib

…

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Posted in Europe / International | Also tagged , , and | 5 Comments
The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Jonathan Fryer – What Hope for the Middle East?

By The Voice | Wed 15th April 2009 - 6:30 pm

Over at Society Today, Lib Dem blogger and London candidate for the European Parliament Jonathan Fryer examines the prospects for peace in the troubled region. Here’s an excerpt:

… the prognosis for the future need not necessarily be as grim as the pessimists fear. First and foremost, the arrival of Barack Obama in the White House should provide a whole new dynamic to the Washington-Tel Aviv axis. In the past, US administrations – including that of George W Bush – have allowed Israel to get away with murder, literally and figuratively. That has included the ongoing expansion of Jewish settlements in

…

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Mark Pack

“Women Erased in Israel, Flogged in Pakistan and Restricted in Afghanistan”

By Mark Pack | Sat 4th April 2009 - 9:12 am

The New York Times headline neatly wraps up three stories about the at times grim, and in the photoshopping case verging on farcical, struggle for women’s rights across much of the Middle East:

On Friday, The Associated Press reported that Israeli newspapers “aimed at ultra-Orthodox Jewish readers” digitally manipulated a photograph of the new Israeli government, to remove two female cabinet ministers, Limor Livnat and Sofa Landver…

The Pakistani newspaper Dawn reports on Friday that Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, is “taking serious notice of the public flogging of a girl in Swat” and “has ordered the authorities to inquire

…

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Posted in Europe / International | Also tagged and | 1 Comment
Stephen Tall

Does the Israeli election result prove PR just doesn’t work?

By Stephen Tall | Thu 12th February 2009 - 8:22 pm

Whenever electoral reform – ie, proportional representation or ‘fair votes’ – is debated, those who oppose it will almost inevitably use a variation on the following arguments:

• it produces coalition governments which are weak, divided and indecisive (far better, obviously, to have strong government regardless of whether a majority of people actually voted for it);
• coalition are created by political deals in “smoke-filled rooms” which the voters have no control over (unlike our Parliamentary system of whipping and Prime Ministerial patronage, of course);
• The government which emerges bears no relation to the individual parties most voters support (compared with …

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Also tagged , , and | 4 Comments
Matthew Harris

Opinion: Israel has no option but to defend itself against Hamas and Iran

By Matthew Harris | Tue 13th January 2009 - 4:10 pm

Lib Dem Voice has invited both the Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine (article published here yesterday) and the Friends of Israel to submit articles looking at the current Middle East crisis. Today we publish this contribution from Matthew Harris, Secretary of Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel.

At the pro-Israeli peace rally on Sunday 11 January, Trafalgar Square echoed to the sound of speaker after speaker calling, as the thousands of placards read, for “peace for the people of Israel and Gaza”. As a Liberal Democrat who believes in human rights and the rule of law, I cannot echo those …

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 40 Comments

Opinion: The West must take some responsibility for the current crisis in Gaza

By Andrew Baldwin | Mon 12th January 2009 - 7:40 pm

Lib Dem Voice has invited both the Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine and the Friends of Israel to submit articles looking at the current Middle East crisis. Today we publish this contribution from Andrew Baldwin, Secretary of Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine.

The recent violence in the Gaza Strip is extremely damaging for the so called ‘peace process’ in the Middle East. The international community has been slow to act, issuing statements urging Hamas to stop firing rockets into Israel, but this almost abandonment of the Palestinian people is extremely dangerous for the future, and ignores the fact that the international …

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 20 Comments
Mark Pack

Nick Clegg: We must stop arming Israel

By Mark Pack | Wed 7th January 2009 - 10:20 am

Nick Clegg has a piece in The Guardian today:

The world watched in horror yesterday as the conflict in Gaza claimed its latest innocent victims in the rubble of a UN school. Any hopes of reconciliation are being snuffed out as anger spills into protests around the world.

The past two weeks have been a telling indictment of the international community. We have an outgoing US president sanctioning Israel’s military response and an aching silence from the president-elect. We have a European Union encumbered by clumsy decision-making and confused messages.

And at home we have a prime minister talking like an accountant about

…

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Mark Pack

In the news: Gaza, Treasury honours and Big Brother

By Mark Pack | Wed 31st December 2008 - 10:28 am

Nick Clegg calls for suspension of EU/Israel agreement: “Innocent people are being killed and injured by a military operation that will only serve to further inflame extremism, and weaken the moderate Palestinian and Arab opinion which Israel’s long term security depends on.”

Vince Cable criticises knighthood for Treasury chief: “I would have thought it a rather premature judgment on government policy, which is far from assured of being a success. There is a slight element of self-congratulation about it.”

Ken Macdonald, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, criticises Labour’s plans for a database to track emails and phone calls …

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Edward Davey MP

Opinion: For the sake of Israel, the attack on Gaza must stop!

By Edward Davey MP | Wed 31st December 2008 - 9:25 am

A true friend is someone who’s prepared to tell you when you’re wrong or you’ve made a mistake – even when they know that message may not immediately help your friendship. With its current massive attack on Gaza, Israel is clearly wrong. Worse still, it’s in danger of making a historic mistake.

In criticising Israel’s bombing, no-one is making light of the rocket attacks its civilians have endured for months by Hamas – even during the ceasefire. Nor do I question Israel’s right to defend herself. Yet the rationale for the attack put forward by the Israeli Government – that it will change fundamentally the security situation in the south of Israel – repeats one of the classic errors of too many modern military tacticians, in supposing that populations, be they terrorists or civilians, can be defeated this way. The truth is, this attack plays into the hands of Hamas, as it will rally support for it within Gaza and across the Arab and wider Muslim world.

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Also tagged and | 33 Comments
The Voice

Israel’s air raids on Gaza: Ed Davey speaks out

By The Voice | Mon 29th December 2008 - 11:15 pm

Via the main Liberal Democrat website comes Ed Davey’s views:

David Miliband may not be prepared to say it, but the Israeli reaction is utterly disproportionate.

From the standpoint of ordinary people in Gaza this is a full-scale attack, which is leaving women and children dead and thousands of innocent people suffering.

The rocket attacks by Hamas are totally unacceptable, but Israel ought to have learnt from its attack on Lebanon which only served to strengthen the cause of extremism.

If David Miliband does not realise this action is disproportionate then he must be the last person in Britain who thinks so.

With this

…

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Also tagged , and | 12 Comments



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