Tag Archives: palestine

Judi Conner

Facing the harrowing facts: it’s time for bold action on Gaza and the West Bank

By Judi Conner | Thu 26th June 2025 - 12:37 pm

After more than a year and a half of bombardment, siege, and systematic starvation in Gaza, it is becoming harder than ever to grasp the true scale of Israel’s atrocities there.  Not because the evidence is lacking, but because the horrors have become so appallingly routine.

Since March, when Netanyahu abrogated the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement, and effectively curtailed the further release of Israeli hostages, the Israeli military has killed almost 6,000 Palestinians, bringing the total Palestinian death toll to 56,000. Day after day, dozens of Palestinians are killed by Israeli soldiers while in their homes, in shelters, or in the queue for aid. Critical infrastructure has been destroyed, attacks on medics, aid workers and journalists have become commonplace, and famine is no longer a looming threat but a pervasive reality.

This week, Defence for Children International and Doctors Against Genocide co-published a report that gives a harrowing account of Israel’s weaponisation of starvation against Palestinian children in Gaza. It documents in unflinching detail 33 cases of child starvation, nine of them fatal, caused by Israel’s systematic obstruction of humanitarian access to the Strip. Newborns, infants and children with chronic illnesses were found to be especially vulnerable to the effects of malnutrition and dehydration, and the report concludes that Israel is using child starvation as a method of genocide, with catastrophic consequences for existing and future generations.

These findings come alongside near-daily massacres at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s food distribution sites. More than 450 Palestinians have now been killed while attempting to access lifesaving supplies. Desperate, hungry civilians are being forced to choose between starvation or Israeli gunfire. These are clear war crimes, as the UN human rights office recognised this week, and the UK should be using every lever available to stop them.

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John Kelly

UK sanctions on Israeli ministers must be a turning point, not a token gesture

By John Kelly | Sun 15th June 2025 - 12:15 pm

This week, the UK government announced sanctions on Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, alongside Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Norway. citing their incitement of violence and abuses of Palestinian human rights. This marks a significant shift – from targeting individual settlers to sanctioning sitting ministers – and is a move the Liberal Democrats have long called for in parliament. 

But if this action is to be more than symbolic, it must mark a broader change in UK policy. Sanctions should not stop at ministers who incite violence; they must extend …

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 15th June 2025 - 10:11 am

United States

The Los Angeles riots started at a local Home Depot store. These stores are a national network of shops selling hardware and DIY material.

Throughout America they act as a magnet for illegal aliens—main Hispanic and Latinos—who base themselves outside shops in search of part-time construction and handyman jobs.

Where illegal aliens gather you will now find Trumps ICE (Immigration Control Enforcement) agents ready to swoop down, arrest, detain and deport. Which is exactly what happened last Friday at the Home Depot store in Los Angeles’s Westlake District and at LA’s Huntington Park.

Normally, the arrests are relatively peaceful. The arrestees may try to run for it, but generally, they are quiet affairs. This time they fought back. They were soon joined by friends, neighbours and family trying to prevent the arrests.

The result was a riot. There was looting and cars were set alight. But the fighting was confined to a few city blocks. Elsewhere in Los Angeles life continued as normal.

Trump did not care. The Los Angeles riots were an opportunity to project his strong man image on the one issue that resonates most with American voters—immigration. Despite the local nature of the riots he went over Governor Gavin Newsom’s head and ordered in 2,000 National Guardsmen and 600 marines.

According to the LAPD, Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass and Governor Newsom, Trump inflamed the situation and – most important of all—broke the law.

The law which they claim Trump broke is the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 which restricts the use of federal troops for domestic law enforcement. There are exceptions, mainly those governed by the 1807 Insurrection Act which says the president can order in federal troops in order to suppress rebellion or insurrection or to enforce federal law when local authorities are unwilling or unable to do so.

The Home Depot disturbances were not an insurrection—however much far-right nationalists claim otherwise. Neither were they a rebellion. And as for the willingness of the local authorities, the mayor had already ordered in the police who said they were in control.

The end result is three-fold. First liberal progressives are now convinced that Trump will use every demonstration as an excuse to shout “insurrection” and possibly declare martial law which could lead to a postponement of elections. Secondly, MAGA Republicans think their president is even more wonderful which means the country is even more divided. Finally, Trump faces another court case. This time he is being taken court by Governor Newsom who also happens to be the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president in 2028.

Trump v Musk

The Battle of the Titans—Trump v. Musk—is over. And Trump has won.

It was inevitable. Alright, Musk is the world’s wealthiest man at $400-plus billion. But Trump controls the machinery of the world’s most powerful country, and he has repeatedly proven that he is not afraid to use that power to further his own ends.

Musk talked—or rather tweeted—big about exposing Trump’s sexual antics and funding a third political party. But his power is based entirely on his pile of cash and Trump has the power to reduce it.

Musk does have some leverage. Both NASA and the Pentagon are dependent on the billionaire’s technology to maintain vital satellite communications and complete planned lunar expeditions. The contracts to provide this technology are worth billions for several years to come.

Trump—in one of his more peevish moods—did threaten to terminate those contracts. It was an empty threat.

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Mark Valladares

10 June 2025 – today’s Federal press releases

By Mark Valladares | Tue 10th June 2025 - 10:30 pm
  • Workforce figures: clear the Government must change course
  • Spending Review must deliver progress on social care
  • “Conveyor belt of Trump sycophants” rolls on as David Bull appointed Reform Chairman
  • Spending review: Home Office at risk of £500 million shortfall as Home Secretary on ‘resignation watch’
  • Ben-Gvir and Smotrich: Davey welcomes sanctions and calls for recognition of Palestine
  • £3 Bus cap extension: Labour clearly isn’t listening

Workforce figures: clear the Government must change course

Responding to the latest workforce figures which show unemployment and the number on jobless benefits rising, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP said:

These figures could not be a clearer signal to the Chancellor, ahead of the spending review, that the Government must change course.

The Chancellor’s pig’s ear of a jobs tax is crushing the growth potential of our high-streets and small businesses, pushing people out of work, and ramping up the benefits bill.

This week, instead of pursuing another round of devastating departmental cuts, the Government needs to take the handbrake off our economy and go for growth. That means negotiating a bespoke UK-EU Customs Union to turbocharge our economy and raise billions of pounds to protect public services and struggling families.

Spending Review must deliver progress on social care

Ahead of the spending review today (11th June) Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP said:

People have been left desperately disappointed in the Government’s failure to break clean from years of Conservative neglect and finally start delivering the change that people were promised.

Today’s spending review must deliver progress on social care. The Government’s bid to start reforms has barely progressed since it was announced six-months ago. Yet we all know the simple truth: without solving the social care challenge, putting money into the NHS today will be like pouring water into a leaky bucket.

Ministers should also be slashing the reams of red tape that are holding local businesses back and negotiate a bespoke UK-EU customs union, rather than pursuing painful cuts to already stretched budgets. Until they do, the Chancellor will still be trying to drive the economy forward with the handbrake on.

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Andy Daer

When will we impose sanctions on Israel ?

By Andy Daer | Fri 9th May 2025 - 10:03 am

For years, many of us have been asking what it would take for the British government to officially recognise Palestine – in order to delegitimise the Israeli annexation of the West Bank and Gaza, and usher in the end of the territorial ambitions of Israel’s far-right.  Well, now we know it’s not Israel bombing Gaza flat in a lethal campaign involving deliberately targeting schools, universities and hospitals, killing tens of thousands of civilians including humanitarian workers, ignoring and disrespecting the UN and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and adding starvation as a war tactic.  The current British government has responded to the Gaza war with the usual evasions and denials.

And yet it was Great Britain which told the League of Nations when we took responsibility for Palestine after World War I that delivering a fair outcome for all the peoples of Mandate Palestine was “a sacred duty for Civilisation”.  Although the passage of time has dimmed that memory for us, it understandably hasn’t dimmed it for the generations of Palestinians who have lived under what Amnesty International calls a system of “oppression” and “apartheid”.  Israeli historian Ilan Pappe long ago called the West Bank an open prison, and Gaza a closed prison.

The key sticking point now is whether or not the destruction of Gaza and its people constitutes genocide.  If the UK government admits that Israel’s actions in Gaza seem like genocide it will be obliged, under the Genocide Convention, to act to stop it, and because of that, Foreign Secretary David Lammy has stood up in the House of Commons and said categorically that he does not recognise what is happening as genocide.

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Andy Daer

The responsibility of Parliament to act on the Gaza War

By Andy Daer | Wed 23rd April 2025 - 3:19 pm

Following World War II, in which tens of millions of non-combatants were deliberately targeted and killed, internationally agreed laws were drawn up to safeguard civilians in future conflicts.  A heavy responsibility was laid on signatories, first to ensure that their own forces didn’t commit the newly specified war crimes, and second to take action to prevent others from doing so.  Sadly, the Israeli military action in Gaza since late 2023 has shown that the noble aspirations Great Britain solemnly signed up to have vanished into the ether.  Israel’s retaliation after the Hamas attack has turned into a one-sided slaughter which has been horrific to watch and has involved multiple breaches of humanitarian law.

The idea that the UK has had no power to stop the killing destruction in Gaza is totally false.  We could have ended verbal support and military assistance to Israel in November 2023, when it first became clear that for many of Israel’s military leaders the real target was the Palestinian people of Gaza, not Hamas.  We could, and should, have followed that up with sanctions – imposed not on a few of the West Bank settlers, but on the whole of Israel.  Such action by the British would have been welcomed and imitated by France, Spain and Ireland, putting pressure on the rest of Europe to follow suit.

Although it may seem too late, we can still do this now.  With Trump in the White House, those who feared challenging Biden’s US position have a much easier question to answer: do we want to be seen to side with Trump’s America and support a genocidal land-grab by Israel, or is it in our own interest to dissociate ourselves from it ?  Not only would we be doing right by the Palestinians, but a European refusal to continue supporting Israel would put Trump in a difficult position.  He might feel he had to follow our lead, but if he didn’t, the American public would find themselves isolated as supporters of what will very likely be officially declared a genocide; home support for Trump could be damaged as a result, which would be another win for the action I’m proposing.  

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Jonathan Brown

The Pathway to Peace for Israel and Palestine: the West Bank is Critical Too

By Jonathan Brown | Fri 18th April 2025 - 11:03 am

While the devastation of Gaza dominates the headlines, Israeli settlers have been ramping up  violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and stealing ever more of their land. The illegal settlement project has long been recognised as undermining the viability of a Palestinian state and as an impediment to peace. Lib Dem MPs have rightly spoken out in favour not just of a lasting ceasefire but of a sustainable way out of this crisis for both peoples. But as we try to find a way to a better future, we need to take another look at what is happening in the West Bank right now.

On the night of Saturday 29 March this year, around 140 Israeli soldiers and settlers raided the Masafer Yatta Village of Jinba in the West Bank. Windows were smashed, homes ransacked, and a school and health clinic damaged. This followed an earlier attack in which settlers beat six residents with batons, hospitalising five – including a 15-year-old boy – before soldiers arrived and arrested 22 villagers accused of attacking a settler Shepherd.

Just days earlier, Palestinian film director Hamdan Ballal was attacked by armed settlers in his village, Susya, also in Masafer Yatta. Ballal was surrounded and beaten outside his home, sustaining injuries to his head and stomach. Israeli authorities subsequently arrested Ballal and two other Palestinians, detaining them in a military facility overnight. The attack came mere weeks after Ballal was presented with an Oscar for his film ‘No Other Land,’ a documentary depicting just such state-backed settler violence.

These attacks are not isolated incidents, nor the actions of ‘bad apples’. They are part of an entrenched strategy to dispossess, displace and oppress Palestinian communities and, in so doing, accelerate Israeli settlement expansion across the illegally occupied West Bank. Since 1967, over 700,000 Israelis have transferred into the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), while hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been forcibly displaced through a combination of discriminatory policies and military and settler violence. Home demolitions, movement restrictions, land confiscation and punitive residency revocations all function within a system Amnesty carefully but justifiably characterises as apartheid. Violence, harassment, land theft and destruction of property by settlers – often carried out with support and assistance from Israeli authorities – adds to the pressure.

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Anne-Marie Simpson

Introducing Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine

By Anne-Marie Simpson | Wed 5th February 2025 - 10:56 am

Lib Dems with an eye on recruitment may have spotted an interesting new job ad in circulation:  Public Affairs, Communications and Administration Officer for the Lib Dem Friends of Palestine. So, who are the Lib Dem Friends of Palestine (LDFP), what do we do, and in what ways could Lib Dems help make a difference now for Palestinians and a political crisis that has threatened global stability for so many decades?

LDFP was founded some 20 years ago for all party members interested in supporting justice for Palestine. We believe that the Palestinian people have the right to live in an independent state of Palestine, just as the Israeli people have the right to live in the independent state of Israel, based on the 1967 borders. To achieve that, Israel must end its illegal occupation of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza. We call on all party members to support this aim, both in principle and by the actions we take, and we actively lobby for it within Parliament and in the wider political sphere.

The principles behind this position align with the core values of the Liberal Democrat Party, namely liberty, equality, democracy, community, human rights and internationalism. We believe support for the aspirations – and rights – of the Palestinians is a very natural fit and sits well with our work with our liberal allies worldwide in calling for justice and peace for the Palestinian people.

We also recognise Britain’s special historic relationship with, and assurances given, to Palestine and the Palestinians. We believe this gives our country a particular responsibility to recognise a Palestinian state, to stand by the rights of its people and strive for a peaceful solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict.

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Caron Lindsay

Calum Miller: Trump’s proposal for Gaza “bizarre” and “dangerous”

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 5th February 2025 - 9:00 am

I’m sure many of us will be watching the television in absolute horror this morning. It is absolutely nauseating to watch Donald Trump talk about the ethnic cleansing of a people as if it is a normal thing to do. We should not tolerate it and we need to all it out for what it is.

Three Lib Dem MPs have spoken out this morning.

Lib Dem Foreign Affairs spokesperson Calum Miller has emphatically condemned Trump’s plan, calling it “bizarre” and ‘dangerous”.

He said:

Donald Trump’s proposal for Gaza is bizarre but also dangerous. It shows casual disregard for the rights and aspirations of Palestinians and threatens the basis for peace at this fragile moment.

The UK cannot be silent – we must make clear that this proposal is damaging, wrong and would amount to a severe breach of international law.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 2nd February 2025 - 10:43 am

United States

Lost in the blizzard of President Trump’s presidential decrees was the throwaway line that he plans to build an Israeli-style “iron dome” over the United States.

There are problems with such an ambition. For a start, the United States is 50 times bigger than Israel. Next problem is that Israel’s iron dome protects against drones, artillery attacks and short to intermediate-range missiles. Any American system would have to add long-range hypersonic intercontinental ballistic missiles to that list.

Next is the cost. Israel’s iron dome is estimated to cost $4-5 billion a year. Using the same technology, an American iron dome would cost about $120 billion. At the moment America’s entire missile defense budget is $29 billion and the total defense budget for 2025 is projected to be $852.3 billion.

The above figures are for a ground and sea-based iron dome. One of Trump’s greatest first-term boasts was the creation of the US Space Force (USSF). The force is 8,400-strong and under the command of General John Raymond. It would seem likely that Trump would want his USSF to at least contribute to the proposed iron dome.

This would involve basing satellites in space which would be armed with laser guns and kinetic missiles. There would also have to be a huge fleet of satellites based over enemy territory to spot missile launches. The advantage of a space-based system would be that the missiles could be intercepted before they reach US territory.

The disadvantages are that it would likely be construed as a breach of the 1967 UN treaty on Outer Space which prohibits the basing or use of nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction in space. There is also the problem of the price tag—an estimated $1 trillion.

But a space-based system cannot do the job alone. Some missiles will inevitably sneak past the laser guns. For protection against them there will need to be a complementary ground-based system as well.

Gaza

Trump is nothing if not stubborn. You could also say obstinate, inflexible, mulish, or, if you want to be kind, persistent.

His suggestion that the Gazan Palestinians be relocated in brand new homes somewhere in Jordan and/or Egypt is the latest manifestation of the first administration’s “Peace to Prosperity” programme which was negotiated by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Kushner’s January 2020 plan did not explicitly call for the resettlement of Palestinians. But it hinted that the US would provide financial incentives for them to move– $50 billion over ten years. But where? Kushner privately proposed Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon. But before publishing those thoughts he contacted the leaders of those countries and was told: “No way!!!”

Resettlement of Palestinian refugees is not a new idea. It is, literally, as old as the founding of the modern state of Israel. David Ben-Gurion proposed it almost as soon as the Israeli flag was first raised. Others who have resurrected it periodically over the past 76 years include: John Foster Dulles, John Bolton, Ariel Sharon, Leader of Lebanon’s Phalange Party Bashir Gemayel, Menahem Begin, Benjamin Netanyahu, all of Israeli’s far-right religious leaders and even an Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Said.

Each time the suggestion has been raised it has been knocked down by the Palestinians and the wider Arab world. For them it has always been a non-starter

Jordan has historically been touted as the most likely home for resettled Palestinians. This is because the British Mandate included the present-day Jordan and Israel. After the 1948 war a number of Palestinian refugees fled to Jordan and were granted Jordanian citizenship. Currently about 50-70 percent of Jordan’s citizens are classified as Palestinian. But problems arose in the late 1960’s when the PLO used Jordan as its main base for guerrilla attacks on Israel. The Israelis responded in kind.

The result was that in 190-71, Jordan’s King Hussein expelled the PLO in what became known as “Black September.” Palestinians are welcome in Jordan, but not those that would antagonise Israel as many who are currently in Gaza and the West Bank might do.

As for those in Gaza and the West Bank, their views were forcefully expressed, by displaced Gazan Abu Yahya Rashid. “We are the ones who decide our fate and what we want,” he said. “This land is ours and the property of our ancestors throughout history. We will not leave it accept as corpses.”

Palestinians and Gazans are holding out for the two-state solution. Once again, Trump is consistent—this time in his opposition to what every other western country supports.  The 2020 Peace to Prosperity plan proposed only a fragmented Palestinian state with limited sovereignty. The Palestinians rejected it. Mike Huckabee, Trump’s newly-appointed evangelical ambassador to Israel, has taken a step further than Kushner. “There will never,” he insisted, “be a Palestinian state.”

United States air crash

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Sam Ammar

From Labour Council Chair to proud Lib Dem: How Labour forced me out

By Sam Ammar | Mon 13th January 2025 - 12:48 pm

Three hours before the deadline for General Election nominations on June 7th, 2024, I resigned as a Labour councillor and as Chair of the Bromsgrove Labour Party. I stood as an independent parliamentary candidate, secured 1561 votes, while Labour lost by 3016 votes to the Conservatives. I have since joined the Lib Dems as I explain below, and we are now the main opposition on Bromsgrove District Council.

Why did I leave the Labour Party and stand against its official candidate?  I had poured my heart and soul into leading the Labour Party in Bromsgrove, transforming it from a gathering that struggled to reach quorum (with fewer than five attendees in 2021) to a team of eight dedicated councillors within three years. Throughout my tenure as a councillor, I earned the respect and trust of all political parties in Bromsgrove, culminating in a unanimous vote to chair the council for a second term in May 2024, just before the General Election was called.

The decision to resign from Labour weighed on me heavily, but the Party had behaved in a very undemocratic way, and after deep reflection, I knew I had to leave.  The local party had been trying to appoint me as its candidate for some time and had been pressing the National Executive Committee (NEC) for action. But on 24 May, it received an email from HQ announcing that Neena Gill, a former MEP, was to be the candidate. I received a phone call the following day from a member of the NEC from which I gathered that I had failed the “due diligence test”. When I pressed for the report, they told me it might be shared after the elections, but not before. I saw this as an affront to the democratic process that denied me the opportunity to understand the basis of their rejection. I submitted a data access request after the General Election, but I was not allowed to see it. 

During my time as a councillor, I had focussed very much on local issues but, following Israel’s war on Gaza, I started to post and write about Palestine, including the ICJ ruling, and my father’s harrowing story of ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem in the Nakba of 1948. It became clear to me in the days after the nomination fiasco that this is what had upset people in the higher echelons of Labour who are/were keen to suppress pro-Palestinian voices and who were probably uncomfortable to discover that my father was Palestinian. 

Initially, local councillors tried to persuade Gill to step aside and called on the Party to reconsider its decision.  But then, twenty-four hours before my resignation, all councillors but two were photographed championing the parachuted candidate.

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Miranda Pinch

Jewish opinions on Palestine vary considerably – As the daughter of a holocaust survivor my own view explained

By Miranda Pinch | Fri 3rd January 2025 - 5:03 pm

My mother was a secular Jewish refugee who fled Czechoslovakia in 1938. My grandfather, Ernst Sommer was on the Nazi death list and escaped separately. He wrote (in 1943) one of the earliest German-language novels on the Holocaust: ‘Revolt of the Saints: A tribute to the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto.’ Published in Mexico City (1944) while in exile.

My mother was always very against what was being done to the Palestinians in her name as Jew. Because of this I became an active campaigner for Palestinian human rights and very concerned about the creeping rise of weaponised antisemitism. It is a threat to open dialogue and a tool to silence voices that speak out against injustice and persecution. This should be worrying for anyone who holds liberal democratic values. This trend has increased year on year, but it has reached truly unfathomable levels since Israel’s War on Gaza began.

I am a member of the Holocaust Survivors’ Descendants Network, and when I march in London, I often do so alongside them. There is a huge UK Jewish contingent on all the marches, reminding me of the strength of solidarity amongst so many in the Jewish community in this country.

Despite portrayal in mainstream media, it is not an inevitable consequence of Jewishness that you support Zionism or the actions of the Israeli government. Nor is it inevitable that all who consider themselves Zionists would support collective punishment, crimes against humanity and what Amnesty and others are convincingly describing as genocide committed by the Israeli state in Gaza as well as ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.  (David McDowall presented the Amnesty analysis demonstrating genocide in his article in Lib Dem Voice on 5 December 2024.)

There is a glaring irony that those who shout the loudest about conflating pro-Palestinian sentiment with antisemitism are those who are being the most antisemitic. They assume that Judaism is synonymous with Zionism or, as both Netanyahu and the Board of Deputies’ leadership in the UK like to infer, that being Jewish is synonymous with support for Israel regardless of its actions. That is a perversion of Judaism and encourages antisemitism.

As a daughter of a holocaust survivor, I grew up knowing the suffering and generational trauma that comes from genocide, but my mother always refused to be a victim. Why should an innocent population in Palestine be punished for the behaviour of Europeans? The convictions that came from such past trauma of ‘never again’ and the establishment of international law and justice seem to have been sidelined by a warped idea of superiority and entitlement and the idea that the rights of one population trump those of another.

So, like very many British Jews, I am not a pawn for pro-Israeli propaganda to use in their grotesque political game. There are plenty of Jewish voices in the UK that show the strength of pro-Palestinian Jewish sentiment including the Holocaust Survivor’s Descendants Network, Jews for Justice for Palestinians,  to which I belong, Yachad,  Na’amod,  and others. These include a range of Jewish voices, both religious and secular and all oppose the Israeli occupation and ethnic cleansing and advocate for the freedom of the Palestinian people.

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The Voice

Ed Davey on 7th October one year on: “We must stand with the Jewish community against hate and violence”

By The Voice | Mon 7th October 2024 - 8:45 am

Commenting on the one year anniversary of the 7th October terrorist attacks by Hamas in Israel, Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said:

As we remember the terror and pain of October 7th, we must all come together and stand in solidarity against hate and violence. One year ago, we awoke to those horrifying scenes in Israel of Hamas’s brutal terrorist atrocities.

When I visited Israel and Palestine a few months ago, I saw for myself the destruction and devastation at the Kfar Aza kibbutz and the festival site in Re’im. I met Itzik, a father waiting for news of his

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The Voice

Lib Dem MPs comment on Middle East escalation

By The Voice | Wed 2nd October 2024 - 9:22 am

If any of us aren’t pretty scared and worried by what is going on in the Middle East, we probably should be.

Lib Dem MPs have been reacting to events as Israel steps up its actions against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran attacks Israel.

And all of this, at the heart, are people facing a humanitarian disaster, living in the most appalling conditions without food or shelter.

On Twitter this morning, Layla Moran said:

All my life my grandparents warned that if we didn’t achieve peace in Palestine it would risk wider war. With Iran’s actions overnight it seems we are inching closer to chaos rather than closure. I am so scared for my family and the future of the region. I pray I’m wrong to be.

On Iran’s attacks, Ed Davey said:

Liberal Democrats totally condemn Iran’s attacks on Israel. My thoughts are with all innocent civilians – in Israel and across the region – who are sheltering tonight.

The UK Government must do all it can to bring the region back from the brink of all out war, working closely with our allies. Too many innocent civilians have already been killed.

We must keep our focus on securing a lasting peace and a two state solution. Only diplomacy can deliver the security across the region that people so desperately need with the hostages home to their families and an end to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

On Monday, Calum Miller, our new Foreign Affairs spokesperson wrote to Foreign Secretary David Lammy about the deepening crisis:

He said:

We must pursue the conditions for peace despite the bleak outlook. I’ll continue to urge the Government to adopt the proposals made by Liberal Democrats at our conference earlier this month.

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Mark Valladares

Lindsay Northover launches bid for Palestinian recognition

By Mark Valladares | Sun 22nd September 2024 - 5:49 pm

I missed this as I was on my way to Brighton at the time, but thought that it might of interest to readers.

Friday, September 13th saw the First Reading of a Private Members’ Bill in the House of Lords, sponsored by Lindsay Northover, our spokesperson on International Development there.

The core text reads as follows:

Recognition of the State of Palestine

  1. The Secretary of State must, within one month of the passing of this Act, take such steps as are necessary to ensure the Government of the United Kingdom formally recognises Palestine as a sovereign and independent state on the basis of the

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John Kelly

Lib Dems should take stronger stand after reports of human rights abuses of Palestinian detainees

By John Kelly | Wed 21st August 2024 - 7:53 am

The scale of the atrocities in Gaza, which we are seeing daily on our TV screens, has reached levels of horror which have left most of us stunned – both by Israel’s brutality, and by the audacity with which it is defying world opinion.   The total Gaza death toll is over 40,000– with an estimated missing further 10,000 buried or blown to pieces.  Many thousands more are expected to die from malnutrition, disease or neglect in the coming months.  Sadly, each new outrage is no longer shocking, given the number of schools, hospitals, universities, churches, mosques, and water works which Israel has targeted over the last ten months.

Israeli actions have long since gone beyond any acceptable definition of ‘self-defence’ following the 7 October attacks. The ICC chief prosecutor believes there are reasonable grounds to believe Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant bear criminal responsibility for Israel’s use of starvation of civilians as a weapon of war and has made comparable claims about Hamas leaders.  The failure of the international community to react and impose consequences for this illegal conduct has led to Israel enjoying a climate of impunity far beyond what it has achieved in the past.

Months ago, the International Court of Justice said there was plausible evidence  that Israel is conducting a genocide in Gaza. The ICJ made various demands on Israel to change its behaviour, but these were largely ignored. A state with any respect for international law ought to impose sanctions on sales of arms to Israel, and the UK has a legal obligation to do this, not merely to impose a ban on future licences.  It will take time for the ICJ to determine if Israel’s bombardment of civilians does in fact constitute  genocide, but the suffering of the Palestinian people is a present day reality for millions in Gaza and the West Bank, and our duty to them cannot be parked until an indeterminate point in the distant future.

The ICJ advisory opinion on the illegality of the Occupation is also devastating; any governments facilitating the continuation of the Occupation, whether by supplying arms or by continuing to permit normal relations with those who benefit from it, are “complicit”, and therefore in breach of international law.  Lib Dems must call not just for a two-state solution but for an immediate end to that occupation, and reparations to be paid to Palestinians, as required in the ICJ opinion.

We must ensure that our Government takes firm action to avoid complicity and to show where we stand. As yet, the Labour government has delayed decisions on the arms trade, and has even failed to publish the Foreign Office legal advice which it claimed parliament had a right to see when it was in opposition. The resignation of British diplomat Mark Smith, who was involved in monitoring arms export licences, brings the new Government’s slowness to act into sharp relief. He told Radio 4’s Today programme “that the state of Israel is perpetrating war crimes in plain sight.” A fuller account was printed in Monday’s Guardian.

A very disturbing trend is highlighted in detail in the latest B’Tselem report (B’Tselem is the leading Israeli human rights organisation), which produced compelling evidence that Israel’s detention centres have become torture camps.  This was reinforced in a lengthy Channel 4 News Report on Monday this week.  It is gruesome and sickening TV to watch – some of the most unpleasant I have ever seen, so be warned.

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Leon Duveen

The real conflict in the land between the Sea and the River

By Leon Duveen | Tue 6th August 2024 - 7:44 am

The real conflict in the land between the Sea and the River is not between Palestinians & Israelis, it is not a religious war (there are Jews, Muslims, Christians & believers of other religions supporting both sides).  It is a conflict between, on one side, those who want that land exclusively for their side, realising that it will mean an ongoing war for the foreseeable future, a war that neither Palestine nor Israel can win but both Palestinians & Israelis will lose, and, on the other side, those who are willing to trade exclusivity for peace, who are willing to accept that both Palestinians & Israelis have the same right to claim the land as their people’s homeland and to be a free people in it.

The exclusivists on both sides are very good at painting the 100+ years of conflict in black and white, us or them, win or lose terms.  Indeed, the exclusivists on both sides are not above working with each other to stop those who accept the need to compromise being accepted as the real patriots.  Even the recent assassination of Ismail Haniyeh can be seen like this, the removal of a relatively moderate Hamas leader in such a way as to strengthen the hawks on both sides.

The reality is the opposite, it is those who believe Palestinians & Israelis  both have rights to that small sliver of land, who believe both people have ancient ties to it and that they both need to learn to live alongside each other who are the real patriots, the people who really love both the land the people who live there & want to see an end to the continual violence.

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Mark Valladares

19-21 July 2024 – the weekend’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Sun 21st July 2024 - 9:15 pm
  • IT outage: Government urged to call COBRA meeting
  • ICJ opinion: UK should recognise the independent state of Palestine
  • Incoming government must recognise Palestine and redouble efforts for peace
  • Rennie files parliamentary motion on schools’ access to Microsoft programs
  • Rennie presses government over implementation date for Children Care and Justice Act provisions
  • Mayor of London questioned over summer preparedness plans

IT outage: Government urged to call COBRA meeting

The Liberal Democrats have called on the government to hold a COBRA meeting to coordinate an urgent response to the IT outage causing major disruption including to airlines, railways and GP surgeries.

Liberal Democrat Cabinet Office Spokesperson Christine Jardine MP said:

The government must call an urgent COBRA meeting to address the chaos being caused by these IT outages across the country.

The public needs to be reassured that the disruption to their travel or their desperately needed GP appointments will be minimised.

Getting critical infrastructure up and running again must be priority number one. The National Cyber Security Centre should also be working with small businesses and other organisations to help them deal with the outage.”

This once again lays bare the need to improve our digital infrastructure and truly modernise our economy in order to prevent the incidents from happening again.

ICJ opinion: UK should recognise the independent state of Palestine

Responding to today’s advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice, Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs spokesperson Layla Moran MP said:

This decision is a wake-up call. Liberal Democrats have always championed international law and the independence of the courts.

The only way to give Palestinians and Israelis the security and dignity they deserve is through a peace process and a two-state solution.

The UK should lead that push by immediately recognising the independent state of Palestine.

Incoming government must recognise Palestine and redouble efforts for peace

Orkney and Shetland MP, Alistair Carmichael, has backed calls for the incoming Labour government to uphold international law and support efforts towards a lasting peace in Israel and Palestine, including the recognition of a Palestinian state. Signing Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson Layla Moran’s parliamentary motion, Mr Carmichael warned that with the election past, now was the time to renew efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza, while welcoming the government’s announcement today of the restoration of funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, the agency which supports aid for Palestinians.

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Ruvi Ziegler

The ICJ Advisory Opinion on the illegality of Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

By Ruvi Ziegler | Sat 20th July 2024 - 9:31 am

On 30 December 2022, the UN General Assembly passed resolution A/RES/77/247 in which it asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to opine on two questions:

First, what are the legal consequences arising from the violation of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination by Israel’s prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 (OPT),  including measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and from its adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures?

Second, how do these Israeli policies and practices affect the legal status of the occupation, and what are the legal consequences that arise for all States and the UN from that status?<

On 19 July 2024, 20 years and 10 days since the ICJ rendered its Wall advisory opinion, the world court delivered a bombshell. All ICJ judges agreed that the above questions fall with the court’s jurisdiction and all but one of the 15 judges (Vice-President Sebitunde) decided that the court should comply with the request for an advisory opinion (given it has discretion whether to do so). The same resounding majority found that ‘Israel is under an obligation to cease immediately all new settlement activities, and to evacuate all settlers from the OPT’ and that it ‘has the obligation to make reparation for the damage caused to all the natural or legal persons concerned in the OPT’.

A smaller yet significant majority, 11-4 (Vice-President Sebitunde joined by judges Tomka, Abraham, and Aurescu) found that ‘Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful’ and that it ‘is under an obligation to bring to an end its unlawful presence in the OPT as rapidly as possible’. The court reached this conclusion in light of the violation of two key principles of international law: the prohibition of the acquisition of territory by force and the right of peoples (in this case, the Palestinian people) to self-determination. The aims and realities of the settlement project in cementing Israel’s presence in the OPT rendering the occupation’s temporariness a façade, and in instituting a discriminatory regime whereby two populations, Israelis and Palestinians, living in the same occupied territory, are subject to different legal regimes, played a crucial role in the court’s determination that the entire Israeli presence in the OPT has become illegal.

When it comes to the responsibilities of other states, by a 12-3 majority (Vice-President Sebitunde joined by judges Abraham and Aurescu) the ICJ found that

‘all States are under an obligation not to recognize as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the OPT and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by the continued presence of the State of Israel in the OPT’.

They also found that:

‘international organisations, including the United Nations, are under an obligation not to recognise as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the OPT.’

Finally, they found that:

‘the United Nations, and especially the General Assembly, which requested this opinion, and the Security Council, should consider the precise modalities and further action required to bring to an end as rapidly as possible the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the OPT.’

This advisory opinion is ground-breaking: by ripping the mask of temporality off the face of Israel’s prolonged occupation, by identifying the settlement project as its core ongoing harm, and by highlighting the critical role the international community (can and must) play in bringing the unlawful situation to a rapid end.

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Andy Daer

The failure to defeat Hamas

By Andy Daer | Thu 16th May 2024 - 5:25 pm

As was confidently predicted by military experts in the days following October 7, Israel has not destroyed Hamas by invading Gaza, and it’s clearly not going to.  Despite having to re-engage with Hamas in the previously “cleared” northern Gaza, it has started to inflict further suffering on the one and a half million people seeking refuge in Rafah, in what Netanyahu says is the final stage of clearing Gaza of Hamas fighters.  He knows most of the people are civilians, and that many are women or children, but he has no other plan, and would probably have seen the collapse of the fragile coalition he leads if he hadn’t pressed ahead.  He may be hoping that if “finishing the job” won’t entirely get rid of Hamas, it may end up inflicting sufficient revenge on the people of Gaza for him to remain in office.

International condemnation of the proposed attack on Rafah was led by US President Joe Biden, and initially echoed by the British government, but although Biden has now sent a message to Netanyahu by halting the supply of bombs which are too big to be used in urban warfare, when the Rafah phase began, British government spokesmen became suddenly silent.  As with Biden after his conversion to limited respect for international law, our government is driven by domestic politics, and Sunak may prefer to avoid the inevitable humiliation of being rebuffed by Netanyahu by keeping quiet about the invasion of Rafah.  Others might say he has been influenced by lobbying groups which support Netanyahu’s Israel unconditionally.

In November last year, the inept James Cleverly was replaced as Foreign Secretary by David Cameron, and we saw a welcome shift in the government’s position on Gaza.  Lord Cameron had one last chance to salvage his reputation before he disappeared from the political arena, and he quickly made the bold announcement that when the fighting ends, the ‘two-state solution’ will have to be a given, and on the table before peace talks begin, not as the prize for Palestinians at the end of the process, if they behaved themselves.  Unusually, the British seemed to have made a foreign policy decision which diverged from the US position, although cynics would say Cameron probably had behind the scenes permission from the Americans to do so.  However, when Israel crossed what had been a “red line” by attacking Rafah, the line was suddenly no longer red, and Cameron was no longer laying down the law to Netanyahu, his brief day in the sun having come to an abrupt end.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 12th May 2024 - 9:26 am

Russia

It was a week of military parades, trumpets, nuclear sabre-rattling and an inauguration in Russia this week.

It started with another threat from President Vladimir Putin when he announced on Monday the start of military exercises involving non-strategic nuclear weapons. This was in response to America releasing its $61 billion aid package to Ukraine, and the repetition of French President Emmanuel Macron’s threat to consider sending French troops to Ukraine.

Then there was Putin’s inauguration as he started his fifth term in office with a long walk past applauding crowds lining the red-carpeted corridors of the Kremlin. Putin’s first inauguration in 2000 was hailed as Russia’s transition to democracy. This one followed an election in which he “won” 87.5 percent of the vote while all his political opponents were either dead, in exile or in prison.

On Thursday it was the Victory Day Parade to mark the end of what the Russians call “The Great Patriotic War.” May Day was the big parade in Soviet days. May 9, was important, but it was not even a public holiday until 1965. Putin, has revived the celebration and elevated it to a collective remembrance resembling a religion.

One of the highlights of the parade is the march of the “Immortal Regiment” in which relatives troop past the reviewing stand holding aloft pictures of family members who died in the war. The scene is reminiscent of icons being carried in Russian Orthodox Church services. The 60th and 70th anniversaries of the war’s end (in 2005 and 2015) were the biggest public holidays in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, the inauguration and Victory Day were marked by increased Russian bombardments and missile attacks as Russian troops tried to gain the military upper hand before the latest batch of Western military aid arrived.

Palestine

The two main Palestinian factions – Hamas and Fatah – hate each other almost as much as they do the Netanyahu government.

They have barely spoken since 2007 when Hamas won elections in Gaza and booted Fatah and the Palestinian Authority out of the seaside strip.

That is why it is significant that representatives from the two factions met recently in Moscow and Beijing. The Chinese meeting was especially interesting because Beijing is keen to project itself as Middle East peace broker as opposed to its characterization of the US as Middle East war monger.

The Chinese have already successfully brokered the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between regional rivalries Iran and Saudi Arabia. Shortly after that success, foreign minister Wang Yi wrote to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offering to mediate in the decades-old Arab-Israel conflict. Netanyahu politely refused.

Brokering a rapprochement between Fatah and Hamas could be a diplomatic back door for Beijing to constructively inject itself into the Middle East conflict. It is generally agreed that the two-state solution is the logical solution to the conflict.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 14th April 2024 - 9:36 am

Middle East

A quick round-up on Gaza, Israel, Iran, Yemen, Lebanon, America and everywhere else that is affected by the ongoing crisis in the Middle East.

President Biden’s “outrage” following the killings of World Central Kitchen aid workers resulted in an apology and two new aid routes: The Erez Crossing and the port of Ashdod in southern Israel. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that as a result 400 aid trucks went through to Gaza immediately after the presidential fury. UN officials said the figure was actually 223.

Disenchanted State Department officials – of which there are a growing number – say that …

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Leon Duveen

How can we find peace?

By Leon Duveen | Fri 1st March 2024 - 4:57 pm

A couple of week ago, I responded to a post in a Facebook Group trying to create a grassroots movement for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.  The post challenged us to outline our vision for peace, this was my response:

My vision for Peace isn’t a detailed plan. Simply, it is that Palestinians and Israelis, Jews and Arabs, Christians, Jews and Muslims learn to accept each other, learn that to live in that small sliver of land between the River and the Sea they must share it with people with a different background, different history, different beliefs but with a shared hope that their children can grow & thrive without the threat of war.

If we can achieve that, the details of the political solution will be easy to decide; unless we can achieve that, no solution will succeed.

There are two other pieces of writing I want to share here.  The first is an (long) article written by an acquaintance in Notts Friends of Standing Together titled There is no Magic Peace Fairy.   It tries to examine how people on both sides have become blind to the suffering of those on the other side, why good people are trapped by their own history to ignore the fact that most people on the opposite side also trapped in their history.  It is a hard read and made think about my own preconceptions and how open was I to having them challenged.

The other is a novel written by Haviva Ner-David called Hope Valley.  Set in 2000, after the failure of the Clinton/Arafat/Brak Camp David Summit, mostly around a Moshav in the Galilee that was built on the ruins of a Palestinian village cleared by the Hagenah during the 1948 war and the neighbouring Palestinian village where some of the refugees from the ruined village now live.  It looks at the intertwined lives of two artists, both with a serious illness, both with deep links to the land both who need to overcome their own misunderstandings & preconceptions.

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Caron Lindsay

Layla Moran’s speech in tonight’s debate: We need to stop this now

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 21st February 2024 - 9:55 pm

I thought about putting Layla’s speech in the last post, but I didn’t want it getting lost. Her clarity and wisdom and persuasiveness, and her liberal desire to bring people together have been a huge credit to her and to this party in recent months. We can all be incredibly proud of her, especially when this has been so personally painful for her.

She spoke in the debate and her words in full are below:

I am speechless at the way this debate began. As the House knows, there has been scant opportunity for me to tell the story not just of my family or the hundreds in the church where they are in northern Gaza, but of Palestinians on the ground and, indeed, those who lost people in the horrendous attacks on 7 October, whether through murder or abduction. I am grateful that we have this opportunity. In the hours of debate in front of us, my first ask of anyone who speaks after me is, please, to hold all those people in their hearts as they say what they say. I believe sincerely that this House is moving towards a right position, and I will explain what I think that is in a moment. On the suggestion that this House is in some way against a ceasefire—I would hope an immediate one, however the semantics play out in the votes later—can we please try to send a message in particular to the Palestinian people perishing in their tens of thousands on the ground, and to those hostage families that, fundamentally, we need this to stop now? I do not care what we call it.

I should have started by drawing the House’s attention to my entry in the register of interests. I sit as an unpaid adviser on the board of the International Centre for Justice for Palestinians.

Last week I went to Israel and Palestine with Yachad, and I will start with a story. On the first day, we went down to the southern border with Gaza, to a place called Nativ Ha’asara, a place I have visited before. We met an incredible woman called Roni, who had lost family members—16 from that kibbutzim had perished. As I went there, I looked across at northern Gaza. I saw the plumes of smoke. I heard the drones and the “pop pop pop” of the gunfire, and I broke down. As I walked back through the village, Roni, an Israeli peace activist, took me to one side, gave me a hug and said, “I’m so sorry”, which I said back. We both cried and held each other.

It is important to remember that although those voices of peace in Israel have been silent for some time, many of the people killed on that day were allies of the Palestinian people who had been calling for decades against the occupation, calling out Netanyahu’s Government, and condemning Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. It is for that reason that I welcome the sanctions on those extremist settlers, because there is a direct link between the right wing elements of Netanyahu’s Government and those extremist settlers. The amendment that the Lib Dems tabled to the motion stated that we should not finish there. We need to continue those sanctions on those people and their connected entities.

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Caron Lindsay

Ed on tonight’s drama in Parliament: We need an urgent end to the humanitarian catastrophe

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 21st February 2024 - 9:17 pm

So I managed to sleep thoughout tonight’s drama.

Waking up to a phone glowing with WhatsApp messages, I realised there had been a bit of a rammy in the Commons. I checked out the BBC summary and my immediate and instinctive reaction is that the Speaker had been right to allow votes on three distinctive positions on such a huge issue. The SNP’s motion called for an immediate ceasefire, the Government’s called for a humanitarian pause and Labour’s had a bit more meat on its bones about how you actually get to a lasting peace. Normally on an opposition day, you’d get the motion and a Government amendment. It is unusual to have a third option, but in this instance, it made sense to reflect as broad a consensus as possible. He could have done better by including a fourth option, ours.

Ours said:

Expresses its devastation at the mounting humanitarian disaster in Gaza with tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians killed, millions displaced and thousands of homes destroyed; calls on the Prime Minister to oppose publicly and at the UN Security Council the proposed IDF offensive in Rafah; further urges Hamas to unconditionally and immediately release the over 100 hostages taken following the deplorable attacks on 7 October 2023; notes the unprecedented levels of illegal settler violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories left unchecked by the Israeli Government; welcomes the recent sanctions by the UK Government against four extremist Israeli settlers who have committed human rights abuses against Palestinian communities in the West Bank; urges the UK Government to sanction all violent settlers and their connected entities; calls on the UK Government to uphold international law and the judgments of international courts under all circumstances; further notes that the only path to regional security is a two-state solution based on 1967 borders with Hamas not in power; condemns Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s repeated assertions that there is no future for a Palestinian state; and further urges the UK Government to call for an immediate bilateral ceasefire in Gaza, which will allow an end to the humanitarian devastation, get the hostages out and provide an opportunity for a political process leading to a two-state solution, providing security and dignity for all peoples in Palestine and Israel.”

You would hope that when discussing one of the biggest humanitarian disasters and most dangerous conflicts we have seen in a long time, the Mother of Parliaments would model generous, collaborative behaviour. It was not beyond the wit of the SNP to work with the other opposition parties to bring together something that truly reflected the will of the House.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 21st January 2024 - 10:57 am

Surprise, Surprise, Benjamin Netanyahu is opposed to the two-state solution.

The Israeli Prime Minister has never made any secret that he believes that the only guarantee of Israeli security is Israeli control of Palestinian security. On Thursday he reiterated his position.

Any Palestinian state, Netanyahu argues, would be dedicated to the overthrow of the Israeli state. And even if they publicly committed themselves to peace, Netanyahu wouldn’t believe them.

The primary responsibility of every country is defence. Ipso facto, there can be no Palestinian state—according to Netanyahu.

Most of the rest of the world believes that there are basically three possible outcomes to the Arab-Israeli Crisis: The Israelis wipe out the Palestinians. The Palestinians wipe out the Israelis. Or the two sides somehow work out a modus operandi that allows the two groups to live side by side in peace.

The Biden Administration was hopeful that the experience of Gaza would show that the only long-term opportunity for peace is a political solution which involves a Palestinian state.

But Netanyahu appears unfazed by Gaza. He told a press conference this week that Israel must have security control over all land west of the River Jordan, which would include the territory of any future Palestinian state.

This is a necessary condition, and it conflicts with the idea of (Palestinian) sovereignty. What to do? I tell this truth to our American friends, and I also told them to stop the attempt to impose a reality on us that would harm Israel’s security.

John Kirby, the US National Security Adviser, replied: “Israel and the US see things differently.”

Donald Trump, on the other hand, sees the Middle East very much through Bibi eyes. His Abraham Accords were designed to circumvent the Palestinians and the two-state solution. Netanyahu’s continued intransigence could—at least in part—reflect his hope for a Trump victory in the November presidential elections.

A Trump Landslide?

Iowa was a Trump landslide. Or was it? Only 15 percent of the state’s 718,000 registered Republicans voted—the lowest turnout in years.

Why? There is no certain answer but here are a few possibles, starting with the MAGA camp: The weather was atrocious. Nobody in their right mind would risk leaving home to caucus in the sub-Arctic temperatures.

Also, the media named Trump the big margin winner before the caucusing started. Why bother risking frostbite to vote for one of the losers or even for the winner? Best stay warm.

Now, for the non-MAGA Republican perspective: We don’t want Trump, but none of the others can win, so why risk hypothermia for a wasted vote?

Everyone is an individual, even in Iowa. So chances are that there are 69,000 reasons why 85 percent of the state’s Republicans failed to caucus. But if that figure is extrapolated across America—then Trump is in trouble come the general election.

As any seasoned campaigner will tell you. The key to winning elections is to persuade as many as possible of your registered voters to get out and vote. Apathy can result in political disaster.

Taiwan

Conspicuous by its near silence in the aftermath of the Taiwanese elections is the voice of Chinese President Xi-jingping.

To briefly re-cap, the Chinese leader was loud in his election support for the Kuomintang but and condemnation for the incumbent Democratic People’s Party. This is because the KMT favoured closer relations with Mainland China based on the 1992 “one country two systems” concept. The DPP, on the other hand, is moving Taiwan closer to a quasi-sovereign independent state.

The DPP’s William Lai won the presidency, although the party has lost its majority in  parliament.

The US is in two-minds about the result. They want Taiwan in the democratic capitalist camp. But not necessarily as a sovereign Taiwan. This could provoke Beijing into a military solution which would drag in America’s Pacific-based Seventh Fleet.

So the State Department issued a rather anodyne statement which welcomed the fact that Taiwan held democratic elections, without focusing on the possible repercussions. Statements from Japan, the EU and NATO countries followed suit.

Beijing was, if anything, more anodyne, it has said virtually nothing about the election result itself. Instead it focused on the statements from the Western countries and basically said they had no right to make any comment because Taiwan is part of China. The diplomatic conversation then ended.

There could be lots of reasons for the Chinese not to take the argument further. There is no point. Xi is busy purging his military and party structures. The Chinese economy is sluggish. Or, he could be waiting for a Trump victory in November.

Is honour now satisfied in the Iran-Pakistan tit for tat missile exchanges?

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John Kelly

The Gaza war continues…

By John Kelly | Fri 5th January 2024 - 9:29 am

Baroness Morris of Bolton begins her New Year message as President of Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) as follows:

In 1984, a group of doctors and humanitarians, horrified by the massacre of Palestinian civilians they had witnessed in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon, grouped together to form Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP). For them, medical relief wasn’t just about saving lives, but was a tangible act of solidarity with a people who had suffered so much for so long.

Forty years later, amid the heartbreaking scenes we are witnessing in Gaza, the future for Palestinians appears bleaker and more uncertain than ever before. Families have been torn apart, homes destroyed, and countless lives shattered. The healthcare system is on its knees. Two million people are now hungry.

We can’t turn on our TVs or radios without a daily report of more civilians being killed – :children, journalists, healthcare workers, staff of UN agencies and NGOs.  The Liberal Democrats are the only national party in the UK to have unequivocally called for a ceasefire.  The majority of Tory MPs seem intent on egging on the Israeli war machine.  Labour is more divided, but its leadership has lost its moral compass – as so often happens with that party on international issues. This interview with Keir Starmer illustrates the point.

What can we do as a small party in Parliament to influence the direction of travel? The situation looks dire.  Israeli PM Netanyahu seems determined to carry on destroying Gaza and indiscriminately killing Palestinian civilians so he can declare victory over Hamas and complete his revenge for the frightful horrors perpetrated on October 7th.  Members of his cabinet – led by Ben Gvir – are calling for Gaza to be cleansed of Palestinians and settled by Israelis.

In addition, in the West Bank, Israeli settlers have escalated attacks, murders and rampant destruction of Palestinian land and property, unchecked by the IDF and supported by powerful Israeli government ministers, Itamir Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. 

What is just as disturbing is the attitude of many Israelis towards Palestinians.  My must read/listen item of the Christmas period was an interview by Owen Jones with Gideon Levy. Levy is the son of Holocaust survivors.  He served in the Israeli army and has become one of Israel’s leading journalists. He has spent much of his time in the West Bank covering and criticising the practices of settlers, the Israeli army and successive Israeli governments. It is well worth listening to this interview which sadly demonstrates how the dehumanisation of Palestinians has become accepted by the majority of Israeli citizens.  Levy argues that only external pressure from abroad is likely to change Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and end its illegal occupation (something quite explicitly recognised by our party when it passed resolution F39 in 2021).

Two of my least favourite listens of recent weeks have been an interview (in French)with Belgian TV and a speech in Germany, both by Yair Lapid the Leader of Yesh Atid, our supposed sister party in Israel.  Uncompromising in his support of the present military assault, he showed absolutely no remorse or sympathy for the suffering of Palestinians at the hands of Israel and in the TV interview was also questioning the idea of a separate state for Palestinians.

In 2003 our Party was the only one to take a strong and moral position on the Iraq war.  The Party was almost totally united on this – only Paddy Ashdown and a few others thought differently.  After some initial hesitation Charles Kennedy played a leading role in the biggest anti-war demonstration; and, as a matter of fact, 2005 was our best election year since the 1920s. Many people who are still active in the party joined because of our stand.

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Andy Daer

What’s the future for Israel and Palestine?

By Andy Daer | Wed 20th December 2023 - 12:55 pm

It is now more than two months since the Hamas attack in southern Israel, and the bombing and shelling of Palestinians in Gaza continues.  Many of us have marched in support of a cease-fire, but the marches have achieved nothing, so it must be time for a rethink.

The horrific, murderous the attack on October 7 had its roots in Palestinian resentment, and arguably the seeds were planted by British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour’s decision during the First World War to donate part of a foreign country we didn’t own to a people who’d suffered abuse and discrimination in Europe for hundreds of years and wanted somewhere to go that wasn’t Europe.  

Others say the current conflict in Gaza is simply the consequence of Hamas behaving “like animals” on October 7.  There are proximal causes and more deep-seated ones, some of which go back a very long way – for some Jewish fundamentalists the claim to ownership of Judea and Samaria goes back thousands of years.   Many other more recent factors are involved, like the funding of Hamas by Qatar (among other countries) and the funding of Israel by the US, which have made the Palestinians pawns in a game driven by the geopolitical ambitions of others.     

What is being lost in the debate over which part of history is most important is the fate of the Palestinian people in Gaza, and increasingly in the West Bank, with bombs falling, bullets flying, and starvation and disease now gaining hold.  Since October 7, more than 20,000 people have been killed, upward of 50,000 injured, and hostages are being held.  Around two million people in Gaza are living in a devastated waste land, short of water, food, electricity, shelter, medical aid, and hope that the world will do anything to alleviate their suffering. 

If the world community is going to move on from simply grandstanding, the obvious first requirement is an end to the fighting.  Calling for Israel to stop hasn’t worked, but if we think that only Israel has the power to end the war we are missing an important point.  Israel has said it won’t stop until Hamas is defeated or surrenders, so the sooner Hamas lays down its arms the better.

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Leon Duveen

Where next for Gaza?

By Leon Duveen | Tue 14th November 2023 - 11:55 am

It is now 5 weeks since the terrible massacre perpetrated by Hamas on mostly civilians in Israel, killing over 1400 people, Jews & Arabs, Israelis, Thai & Nepalese and kidnapping more than 240 into the tunnel network inside Gaza as hostages. This was a savage attack, with people killed in front of their children, in front of their parents. Old people, young people, even babies, were not spared. Nothing that has happened since should hide that simple brutality of the actions of Hamas. This went beyond a raid into Israel, it was a pogrom against civilians whose only crime was that they lived in Israel. 

It also broke an existing ceasefire between Hamas and Israel that had allowed a slow (far too slow) relaxation of the blockade of Gaza, that allowed an increasing number of Gazan residents to work inside Israel & provide for their families. There was also the tantalising possibility of an agreement with Saudi Arabia that would have included measures to ease the plight of Palestinians which has now gone because of Hamas’s actions.

However, none of this is an excuse for the actions of the Israel Government. By acting in the way they have done, the Netanyahu Government has lost the goodwill from around the world it got after the October 7th.

It has allowed itself to be drawn into a fight on Hamas’s terms.  It has been culpable in the killing of thousands of Gazans of all ages, many of whom were not members or even supporters of Hamas. It has invaded Gaza with no clear idea of how to extract itself after the fighting ends. It has embroiled the Israeli Military in a war it cannot win however many Hamas militants (and Palestinian civilians) it kills, simply provided a ready supply of new volunteers bent on revenge for the death of their loved ones.  It has made the release of the hostages taken into Gaza more difficult. It has made finding a resolution to the wider conflict and providing long term security for Israel far more complicated.

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Mark Valladares

Israel-Gaza conflict: Liberal Democrats call for immediate bilateral ceasefire

By Mark Valladares | Mon 13th November 2023 - 7:58 am

Leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey and Lib Dem Foreign Affairs spokesperson Layla Moran MP have today called for an immediate bilateral ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza conflict.

The purpose of such a ceasefire, which must apply to both Israel and Hamas, would be to get aid in, get the hostages out, and provide space to realise a political solution, ultimately with two states and a lasting peace.

Ed Davey has set out this proposal in full here.

Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs spokesperson Layla Moran MP commented:

A lasting peace and a two-state solution is the only way to guarantee

…

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Posted in Europe / International, News and Press releases | Also tagged , , and | 26 Comments
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