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Author Archives: John Kelly

Change of Guard in Tel Aviv – what hopes for peace?

By John Kelly | Mon 14th June 2021 - 9:07 am

It’s a momentous day because Netanyahu has been voted out of office and like his predecessor Ehud Olmert now faces the prospect of jail and so will hopefully disappear. He leaves power as Prime Ministers often do because he lost. But as Anshel Pfeffer in today’s edition of Ha’aretz points out, he is overall a winner.

The man who was written off so many times as a passing and inconsequential politician, even after his first term as prime minister in the 1990s, became Israel’s longest-serving leader – even longer than the founder, David Ben-Gurion. Someone who managed to hold onto power for 15 years didn’t lose, even if he was forced out at the end.

According to Pfeffer all previous Israeli Prime Ministers thought that the problems between Israel and Palestine had to somehow be solved, otherwise the rest of the world wouldn’t leave them alone.

(Netanyahu) ..was the first to recognize the fatigue of world leaders, as well as that of Arab dictators, over the Palestinian issue. As a ruthless pragmatist, he correctly assessed that as time passed, his fellow statesmen would prefer economic and security ties with Israel, and that the Palestinians had nothing to offer.

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Tagged israel | 29 Comments

Negative impact of Covid-19 on people with a learning (or intellectual) disability

By John Kelly | Thu 11th February 2021 - 12:02 pm

This is a version of a post, revised by the author, that originally appeared earlier this week.

The covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the unacceptable health inequalities faced by people with a learning (or intellectual) disability. This has been brought home by the JCVI decision not to prioritise them adequately during the vaccination programme and has been highlighted in an article in the British Medical Journal on which this blog draws heavily for the benefit of a lay readership.

It is estimated that only about 250,000 adults are registered as having a learning disability with their GP’s, although there are estimated to be c.1.5 million people in this country with this particular diagnosis. One of the serious indications of learning disability is an inability or difficulty in reading the written word, a difficulty shared by many more who don’t meet all the criteria to have a learning disability, including for example, over 50% of those in prison in the UK. Inability to read is often accompanied by other limitations on comprehension, which helps to explain why people with learning disability are slow to understand when they are ill and to seek or be offered medical care. The result is reduced life expectancy – people with learning disability die on average 25 years earlier than the general population.

The charity Beyond Words produces books and leaflets that tell stories with pictures to help people with learning disability lead their lives. It has produced a series of books since the outbreak of COVID to explain about COVID – the symptoms, how to keep safe, vaccinations etc.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged coronavirus and learning disabilities | 7 Comments

Israel/Palestine in 2021

By John Kelly | Thu 31st December 2020 - 2:52 pm

As 2021 approaches and as Trump prepares for an undignified exit from the White House, can we hope for some positive moves towards a peaceful settlement of the Israel/Palestine conflict? Joe Biden may in due course try to get the peace process going, but nothing much will happen for a few months until yet another Israeli election has taken place in March.

There are also plans for long overdue elections in Palestine which may lead to a power shift to a younger and more credible generation of political leaders. Even if Netanyahu loses (and all liberal democrats will surely pray for …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged israel and palestine | 12 Comments

What’s happening in Israel and Palestine?

By John Kelly | Mon 4th May 2020 - 1:11 pm

While international focus has been on Covid-19, one could be excused for thinking all was quiet in Israel and Palestine. Benny Gantz, who got one more seat for his coalition than Netanyahu in the January elections, tried to form a government initially which included Arab and Centre Left support. He failed, as did Netanyahu with the far right. The two of them have now agreed terms for a centre-right coalition, in which Netanyahu becomes PM for the first 18 months and then Gantz follows.
The Netanyahu/Gantz agreement specifies a timetable formally to annex East Jerusalem and the West …

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Tagged israel and liberal democrat friends of palestine | 15 Comments

Anti-Semitism and the IHRA Definition

By John Kelly | Sat 15th February 2020 - 11:28 am

In September 2018 the Federal Board of the Party adopted the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Association) definition of anti-Semitism. It did so following the recommendation of the Home Affairs Select Committee in its report of 2016 that government and public bodies should adopt this definition, with certain caveats. The definition has been adopted by many universities and local authorities and the UK Government has recently putting pressure on those public bodies that haven’t to do so in the near future.

The basic working definition reads:

Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.

The definition is normally published with examples of manifestations of anti-Semitism – some of which refer to Israel. The Home Affairs Select Committee was concerned that the definition might lead to charges of anti-Semitism being levelled against those who criticised the actions of the Israeli government and recommended the addition of two caveats to the definition if it was to be used by UK public bodies, as follows:

24. We broadly accept the IHRA definition, but propose two additional clarifications to ensure that freedom of speech is maintained in the context of discourse about Israel and Palestine, without allowing antisemitism to permeate any debate. The definition should include the following statements:
1. It is not antisemitic to criticise the Government of Israel, without additional evidence to suggest antisemitic intent.
2. It is not antisemitic to hold the Israeli Government to the same standards as other liberal democracies, or to take a particular interest in the Israeli Government’s policies or actions, without additional evidence to suggest antisemitic intent.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged anti-semitism | 62 Comments

Apartheid in Israel?

By John Kelly | Sun 29th July 2018 - 10:26 am

Is the Nation-State Act, approved by the Israeli parliament last week, really as bad as its critics suggest? Jonathan Freedland, Guardian journalist and occasional writer in the Jewish Chronicle, clearly thinks so. Neither he nor the Chronicle have been willing to criticise Israel very much in the past, but this has been changing in recent weeks. His article of 27 July lays it out clearly:

“It… (the Act)…says that the right to self-determination in Israel is a right that applies to Jews only and that Hebrew is the state’s only official language, with Arabic now granted merely a “special status”. The combined effect of those two moves is to tell the one-fifth of the country that is not Jewish and whose mother tongue is Arabic that they are second-class citizens.”

Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which is always very critical of its government’s treatment of Palestinians, had an article the following day with the sub-heading The nation-state law is a sickening rejection of equality for all of Israel’s citizens.

Many are now saying that Israel itself, and not just the Occupied Territories, now meets the UN Definition of an Apartheid State. Article II of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (1973) defines Apartheid as follows:

“The crime of apartheid” means inhumane acts….committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.

Reaction to the new law has of course been greeted with anger by Arabs, dismay by European governments (whose concerns are as usual ignored by Israel) and, significantly, there has been strong criticism in Israel itself.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged israel and palestine | 20 Comments

Compassion and Trust in Politics

By John Kelly | Wed 20th June 2018 - 12:37 pm

What is the matter with Theresa May? Is she really the untrustworthy and uncompassionate minister she has been portrayed, or does she just surround herself with advisers who are like that?

This morning on the Today programme Dominic Grieve spoke with barely veiled anger at the way he and others were let down by the PM last week over Europe amendments. Well, that’s politics you may say. But this interview followed soon after John Humphreys interviewed a mother who had been trying to get special cannabis oil for her epileptic child. Not the mother who was interviewed by him yesterday who had just got Sajid Javid to relent and let her keep the cannabis oil she had brought back from Canada. Both families had spent tens of thousands of pounds having their children treated abroad and met uncompassionate and callous resistance from ministers and officials – especially in the Home Office.

Coming back to Theresa May – she apparently met the mother interviewed this morning, in March, and promised her that she would sort it so that her child could use the oil. Her officials have still not approved the special licence and been deeply unhelpful to the mother concerned. Theresa May’s flash of compassion has not been followed through – again showing she can’t be trusted.

Who presided over the Home Office and is responsible for the Windrush debacle: the families split up, the heartbreak of so many mistreated people? This was no isolated case as readers of the I newspaper, and the Guardian know from reading week in and week out of bad uncompassionate decisions being made by Home Office ministers and civil servants. The Law Society recently published a report that didn’t get nearly enough attention, in which it highlighted that the Home Office loses over 50% of immigration appeals. This is a scandalous waste of public money. Meanwhile, so many individuals and families are put through while uncompassionate civil servants mount ridiculous challenges to the most deserving asylum seekers for example. The Law Society suggested that there might be institutional racism at the Home Office. That has been rather obvious to me for a long time.

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Posted in News and Op-eds | Tagged theresa may | 7 Comments

The Israeli occupation gets worse and worse

By John Kelly | Sat 2nd September 2017 - 1:00 pm

The Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory – West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza – continues and deepens week after week. The occupation is of course illegal under international law – as enshrined in the Geneva Conventions which were adopted after World War II. As a reaction to Germany’s colonising activities in Eastern Europe, they specifically prohibit the colonisation/absorption of land conquered in war (in this case 1967) into the territory of the conquering country. Just this weekend Netanyahu has confirmed his determination to continue the settlement enterprise and never to give back any land that has been stolen. This has been reported in Haaretz, the Iiberal Israeli newspaper, which is the source of much of the information in this post.

In Gaza, the siege continues and this prevents the rebuilding of the territory after the last Gaza conflict (2014) and inflicts daily misery on the inhabitants. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, it is estimated that over 3500 Palestinians have been arrested this year alone. Many of these are children and every day I read reports of new overnight arrests – children and adults taken from their beds by Israeli soldiers. Settler violence towards Palestinians has increased dramatically and the Haaretz and Israeli NGO’s regularly report on this. The settlers who commit crimes against Palestinians are protected by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) whose soldiers rarely intervene. Prosecutions of settlers for such crimes are almost unheard of.

A particularly serious development has occurred these past two weeks which has really incensed some European governments. With the start of the new school year the Israelis have decided to demolish several schools. Some of these have been funded by the Belgian, Dutch and Norwegian governments. This has been documented this week in an article in the Independent (also confirmed by Haaretz) which reports that 55 schools in the West Bank are currently under threat of demolition.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged israel and palestine | 45 Comments

Commemorating 50 years since the Six Day War

By John Kelly | Tue 6th June 2017 - 4:17 pm

On Monday, June 5, Palestinians and their supporters marked 50 years since the 1967 Six Day War, when Israeli forces occupied the remaining 22 percent of historic Palestine left over from the War of 1948. During this military assault, Israeli forces displaced another 350,000 Palestinians from their homes, and turned many 1948 refugees into refugees again.

How long must Palestinians wait to return to their homeland? How long until the international community exercises its political will to force Israel to comply with international law? How long until the UK and other western countries, explicitly or tacitly, end the double standard in its foreign policy and unconditional support for Israeli policies that contravene international law and deprive Palestinians of their basic human rights?

The international community is gradually losing patience with Israel’s occupation. U.N Security Council Resolution 2334 in December 2016, which refers to Israel as an “occupying power”, condemns “all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem”, and condemns, inter alia, the construction and expansion of settlements, transfer of Israeli settlers, confiscation of land, demolition of homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians. The Resolution furthermore states in the clearest terms that the UN Security Council “will not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations.”

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Posted in Op-eds | 12 Comments

Royal indiscretion

By John Kelly | Tue 14th March 2017 - 6:55 pm

This week it was reported in the Times that President Reuven Rivlin of Israel had invited the Royal Family to send a representative to the country this year to celebrate a hundred years since the Balfour Declaration. There is intense speculation in the Israeli press now that the Royal Family might break its longstanding reluctance to visit Israel officially. It would clearly invite controversy to visit a country in such flagrant breach of international law – defying the United Nations with its illegal settlements, child detention, blockade of Gaza and marginalisation of its ethnic minorities. The Balfour Declaration, as well as promising a home for the Jewish peoples, also promised that the rights of the Palestinians must be protected. This was ‘a sacred trust of civilisation’ under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations which Britain took on when it accepted the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. We betrayed that sacred trust and, until that trust is redeemed, the Balfour Declaration should not be celebrated. A petition to the Queen’s Private Secretary to discourage such a visit is circulating.

The idea that the Royal Family would give any sort of endorsement or honour to the State of Israel this year sadly fits with a pattern of inadvisable steps that have been taken in the last couple of years. The weekend before her infamous visit to the White House, Theresa May told Andrew Marr that it was up to the Queen whether President Trump was invited to Buckingham Palace this year. Within days she had extended an invitation on the Queen’s behalf, which was of course accepted, to great public outcry in the UK. American presidents crave the publicity that goes with a State Visit to the UK – remember Ronald Reagan on horseback with HM at Windsor. Normally US Presidents must wait until their third year in office – if indeed they get one at all. That gives them a chance to show that they are a good friend to the UK and frankly deserve it. George H Bush never had one at all. Donald Trump hasn’t done anything for the UK yet, and is a major potential threat to the world order. His visit, if it happens anytime soon, will be highly controversial and will embroil the Royal Family in politics. It was unwise of the Palace to go along with Theresa May in approving Trump’s visit in his first year.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged israel, palestine and royal family | 13 Comments

Spare a thought for Bethlehem

By John Kelly | Sat 24th December 2016 - 9:11 am

Last January I managed to visit Bethlehem after 5.5 hours of delay and “obstruction” at the Jordan/Palestine border by the Israeli authorities. As well as visiting the (Christian) University of Bethlehem, I also paid a visit to the birthplace of Christ and the place where Christmas originated. At this time of year, it is appropriate to remember just how much the occupants of Bethlehem are affected by the illegal occupation and I am grateful to the Palestinian mission for the following information, which I will present without further comment – it speaks for itself.

Bethlehem is located 10 kilometers to the south of Jerusalem. It has a population of over 220,000 people, including over 20,000 living in three refugee camps (Dheisheh, Aida and Beit Jibrin).

The most important cities and towns of the governorate are Bethlehem City, Beit Jala, Beit Sahour, Al Doha, Al Khader, Battir and Artas.

There are two sites in the governorate that have been inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites:

The Nativity Church and Star Street (“Church of the Nativity and the Pilgrimage Route”).
Battir, including Wadi’ Makhrour (“Land of Olives and Vines – Cultural Landscape of Southern Jerusalem, Battir”).

Other important heritage and archeological sites located in the governorate are:

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged bethlehem | 15 Comments

Is Labour really the natural home for those concerned about human rights?

By John Kelly | Mon 22nd August 2016 - 12:11 pm

Embed from Getty Images

I read the report by Shami Chakrabarti into alleged racism in the Labour Party over the weekend. It’s a good report and an interesting read for a number of reasons – but I was looking for lessons for our Party.

What particularly struck me was that right upfront she explains why she joined the Labour Party as soon as she was appointed to lead the Inquiry. She states that she has always supported and voted for the Labour Party but that her various jobs (Civil Servant and then Director of Liberty) required her to be non-Party political. She goes on to say that Labour is however the natural home for anybody concerned about human rights, that all significant legislative improvements in human rights in this country have happened on Labour’s watch, and that Labour has consistently been the first Party to accommodate immigrant voices and to achieve significant support among successive waves of immigrants -whether they be Jewish, Irish, BAME.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged labour and shami chakrabati | 33 Comments

Disaster of Iraq is just one chapter of a flawed British Middle East Adventure

By John Kelly | Fri 8th July 2016 - 11:59 am

As we reflect on the Chilcot report, it is also worth reminding ourselves that British Foreign Policy in the Middle East has been flawed and at times disastrous for the last 100 years. Too often it has been based on colonial ambition or narrow economic self-interest or just surrendering to powerful lobbies – often ignoring the expertise of well-informed diplomats and historians whose advice would have helped to avoid and repeat mistakes.

Until shortly before World War 1 the Levant was run by the armies of occupation of the Ottoman Empire. While this colonial Ottoman governance was exploitative and far from benign, it must be admitted that Muslims, Christians and Jews lived in relative peace and harmony, trading together, socialising and even inter-marrying. The arrival of the French and British colonial powers was at first welcomed by most Arabs, who anticipated a less grasping and more civilised governance and some hope of eventual self-rule. Fairly soon the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 led to a carving up of the region into French and British spheres of influence which showed little respect for natural communities and ethnic or religious difference. Promises about self-governance were repeatedly broken or only half-implemented. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 which promised the creation of a Jewish national home within Palestine was greeted with dismay by Palestinian Arabs, so the British government pledged that the rights of Palestinians must be protected in the implementation of this plan – a promise that was totally forgotten when the time came.

In the aftermath of World War 2, and, under pressure from Zionist terrorist gangs, a virtually bankrupt British Government could not escape quickly enough; it abandoned the Palestinians to their fate when the UN approved the partition of the country. The resulting ethnic cleansing and subsequent Israeli –Arab wars have left the festering sore of Israel as the occupying power in Palestinian majority areas in defiance of international law and UN resolutions.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged middle east and palestine | 5 Comments

UN tells Israel to stop taking Palestinian resources

By John Kelly | Sat 2nd January 2016 - 1:25 pm

In a little reported step on Tuesday 22 December, the United Nations General Assembly, citing the Fourth Geneva Convention, adopted a resolution demanding Palestinian sovereignty over natural resources under Israeli occupation and the UK actually voted in favour!

The Fourth Geneva Convention was adopted in 1949 following the Second World War and the forced migrations of many peoples that occurred during and immediately after it. Article 49 of that 4th Geneva Convention clearly states: ““The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” Israel ratified this Convention in 1951. In 1993, the United Nations Security Council adopted a report from the Secretary-General and a Commission of Experts which concluded that the Geneva Conventions had passed into the body of customary international law, thus making them binding even on non-signatories to the Conventions whenever they engage in armed conflicts.

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Tagged israel, middle east and palestine | 29 Comments

Christians continue to suffer on the West Bank

By John Kelly | Thu 3rd September 2015 - 1:45 pm

There are constant reminders of the sheer awfulness of the illegal occupation of the West Bank by Israel. The video which went viral last week showing an Israeli soldier assaulting a 12 year old boy, with his already broken arm in a plaster cast, is a case in point. He was rescued by his mother and other women from the village, who are now depicted in much of the Israeli press as the attackers and the soldier as the victim! Minister of Culture Miri Regev said the troops should have used their guns!

The British media often presents the conflict as one between mainly Muslim Arabs and Jews, forgetting that there is a significant Christian Arab population, albeit one that continues to decline as more and more leave the country. I am grateful to the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Foundation for sharing this information.

Christian communities suffer just as much as Muslim communities in the West Bank. In July, the Israeli High Court reversed a previous decision to halt work on the wall which will separate the mostly Christian-populated Beit Jala and the Cremisan Valley near Bethlehem, and the Cremisan monastery from its sister convent and school. The new High Court ruling has been challenged. Israeli forces however hastily uprooted dozens of olive trees of Palestinians and leveled land belonging to a number of families as part of its plans to resume the construction of the wall, which is also close to the illegal Israeli Har Gilo settlement.

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Tagged israel, palestine and west bank | 17 Comments

Introducing…Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine

By John Kelly | Fri 29th May 2015 - 10:50 am

The Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine exists to fight for the rights of the Palestinian People through the medium of the Liberal Democrat Party. The party’s core values of liberalism, internationalism and support for the indivisibility of human rights and the rule of law make it the natural home in mainstream British politics for those determined to support the Palestinian call for recognition of their own State, for justice and their entitlements under international law.

Prior to 2010 the Party was recognised as the only one of the three main parties that could be relied upon to support Palestinian rights …

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Posted in Lib Dem organisations | Tagged introducing and liberal democrat friends of palestine | 9 Comments

Opinion: Why Liberal Democrats should respond positively to the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign’s questionnaire

By John Kelly | Tue 28th April 2015 - 3:45 pm

In an election Campaign in which none of the Parties has wanted to talk very much about foreign policy, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign has been asking candidates their views on a variety of questions related to Palestine and then urging the c.200,000 people on their mailing list to consider these responses before deciding how to vote. On average that represents 300 supporters per constituency – more than the margin that decided the election in a handful of seats in 2010, including some of ours.

Over 800 candidates have responded. I did a check a few days ago and found that only half of the Lib Dem candidates in constituencies that we held last time have responded. Some of the responses, for instance from Martin Horwood, Layla Moran, Andrew George and John Hemming were particularly strong. Others responded rather weakly and seem to have been following a rather weak brief supplied by Party HQ.

Liberal Democrat candidates who haven’t yet responded should be aware that Greens have been particularly punctilious about responding and doing so positively to PSC questions, which were:

Do you agree with the following statements:

I urge the UK Government to uphold the principles of equality, human rights and international law in all its relations and dealings with Israel.
I consider the construction of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to be illegal and unjustifiable.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged gaza, general election 2015, israel, palestine and palestinian solidarity campaign | 8 Comments

Opinion: Ethical Foreign Policy

By John Kelly | Mon 16th March 2015 - 2:26 pm

View image | gettyimages.com

At a dinner in London last week to celebrate David Steel’s 50 years in Parliament Nick Clegg congratulated David on his internationalism and talked at length about the importance of our Party being the champion of internationalism and human rights.

In his final conference speech Nick said “we will stand up for tolerance, decency and fairness” but this was put in a domestic context. Hopefully we will soon hear an election speech from Nick offering a Lib Dem foreign policy that will clearly differentiate us from the Tories and from the policies of the Blair/Brown years.

This is the speech I would like to see Nick deliver about ethical foreign policy:

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged david steele, foreign policy and nick clegg | 9 Comments

Opinion: It’s time to recognise Palestine as a state

By John Kelly | Tue 24th February 2015 - 12:29 pm

Israelis go to the polls on March 17 and no doubt the US and UK governments and most Lib Dems are hoping for a Netanyahu defeat and a more “liberal” government. Opinion polls however suggest the opposite. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz, in article on 1 February, suggested that Netanyahu’s re-election would be the better outcome, as then the rest of the world would see the need to keep up the pressure on Israel. The article suggested that it could be worse if a government of the centre left was elected as this would reassure the rest of the world that peace negotiations would be renewed, while nothing would actually happen. So, whatever the outcome of the election, there is a need for EU countries to keep up the pressure on the Israelis to stop their illegal activities in the Occupied Territories, lift the cruel siege of Gaza, and settle fairly with the Palestinians.

I would suggest that now is the time, well before the general election, for the Party to commit itself to immediate British recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state on the basis of the pre-1967 borders, as Sweden did last October, and to encourage other members of the EU to do the same. Sweden acted alone, France is getting close to doing so and others would undoubtedly follow the United Kingdom.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged eu, foreign affairs, israel, middle east and palestine | 21 Comments

Opinion: Jewish and Muslim voting intentions

By John Kelly | Tue 11th November 2014 - 8:55 am

The Independent on Sunday headline on 9 November suggested that Jewish donors were deserting Labour because Miliband and Alexander have been so forthright in their criticism of Israel over the Gaza invasion this summer and their strong support for recognition of the state of Palestine. A day earlier Jewish News published the results of a poll carried out within the Jewish Community.

The headline was that Jewish voters were 30% less likely to vote Labour because of its leadership’s stance. What was much more interesting was that 19% say they would vote Labour compared with 15% who actually voted Labour in 2010 – i.e. at a time when the Brown/Blair governments had been pretty slavish in their support of Israel even during previous Gaza conflicts and the invasion of Lebanon. Could this perhaps show that the most vocal leaders of the Jewish Community are out of step with the masses and that significant numbers in that Community in fact would rather support a Party that is highly critical of the present government of Israel?

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged general election 2015, jewish and muslim voting intentions and opinion polling | 25 Comments

Opinion: An Open Challenge to Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel

By John Kelly | Wed 13th August 2014 - 10:00 am

In recent months a number of Lib Dem Voice readers have suggested that there should be a dialogue, if not a merger, between the Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine and the Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel. This week one person highlighted the objectives of each organisation as shown on their websites as follows:

Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel:
“We exist to support and promote policies which lead to peace and security for Israel in the context of a comprehensive and lasting Middle East peace settlement”.

Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine:
“ exist to fight for the rights of the Palestinian People through the medium of the Liberal Democrat Party”

When I became Vice Chair of the Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine (LDFP) last autumn I had the same thought and suggested to my (somewhat sceptical) colleagues that our common Lib Dem values should give us a fair amount of common ground – even if not complete agreement.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged friends of israel (Lib Dem), friends of palestine (Lib Dem), gaza, israel, middle east and palestine | 90 Comments

Opinion: Who are the terrorists?

By John Kelly | Tue 29th July 2014 - 11:44 am

This sign held by a Palestinian child at a demonstration sums up the context and background of the present conflict in Gaza that has also led to violence and loss of life in the West Bank.

This simple summary of the oppressive behaviour of the Israeli government shows how it amounts to State Terrorism. Western governments are reluctant to recognise this for what it is and our own political leaders (Cameron, Hammond, Miliband – and even our own Nick Clegg who has been much quieter than he was during the Cast Lead invasion of 2008) usually qualify any criticism of Israel with a statement that Israel has the right to defend itself, i.e. they accept at best the “justified but disproportionate” paradigm which is frankly indefensible.

Our governments have allowed Israel the means to maintain an illegal and oppressive control over Palestine. They have refused to put economic and other pressures on Israel to change its behaviour. They ignore the words of leaders of liberal organisations (Yachad, Jewish Voice for Peace, New Israel Fund etc.) or of liberally minded journalists in Israel (Haaretz) and other Jewish commentators like Professor Avi Shlaim and Henry Siegman, and accept the propaganda coming from Israel’s far right politicians, who they wouldn’t even talk to if they were active in the UK.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged hammas, israel and palestine | 52 Comments

Opinion: Hamas and the collapse of Palestine/Israel Peace Negotiations

By John Kelly | Mon 12th May 2014 - 1:00 pm

Two weeks ago the Israeli Cabinet declared that the peace negotiations over Palestine were halted in view of the reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas. The fact that the Cabinet Meeting took six hours perhaps suggests that this was not a unanimous decision. Was it a reasonable decision?

Background on Hamas can be found here. The essentials are that it was founded with the aim of liberating Palestine from Israel and had an armed wing that has indulged in terrorism. (Sound like Sinn Fein and the IRA?) Nonetheless it won Parliamentary elections …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged eu, israel and palestine | 32 Comments

Opinion: Liberal Democrat support in minority and other communities

By John Kelly | Tue 22nd April 2014 - 3:30 pm

Liberal Democrats are thought to have benefited considerably from support in Muslim communities at the 2010 General Election.

This can be attributed both to the Lib Dems being the only party to oppose the invasion of Iraq in 1993, and also to Nick Clegg being the only party leader to consistently criticise Israel for its policies towards Palestinians in the years leading up to the Election. This has caused some concern in the party that we may be losing Jewish votes. During the period of the coalition government there has been much more …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged friends of palestine (Lib Dem) and israel | 19 Comments

Opinion: Crimea/Palestine – unfavourable comparisons

By John Kelly | Fri 4th April 2014 - 3:39 pm

As a Liberal Democrat one is appalled by the heavy handed way that Russia has moved into Crimea with an apology for a referendum. It may be the wish of the majority but this invasion is totally against international law and indeed tears up the post-Soviet treaty between Russia and Ukraine. The criticism of Russia is led by the USA and strongly supported by the rest of Europe. Many in Europe and the Middle East are wondering why the same critics have been so mute in the face of not dissimilar aggression and occupation of Palestine by …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged friends of palestine (Lib Dem), israel and palestine | 9 Comments