Israel: Arab Israeli and Jewish Israeli Communities
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts(2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
To ask His Majesty’s Government what support they are giving to grassroots movements in Israel which are working to bring Arab Israeli and Jewish Israeli communities together.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Collins of Highbury) (Lab)
My Lords, the United Kingdom Government remain committed to supporting peaceful coexistence and dialogue. We actively promote interfaith understanding through initiatives such as the Drumlanrig accord. Our diplomatic missions regularly meet with Arab Israeli and Jewish Israeli organisations that promote dialogue and co-operation between Arabs and Jews. For six consecutive years we have funded Search for Common Ground, which has brought together Jewish and Muslim religious leaders for dialogue programmes.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful for the Answer from my noble friend the Minister. At this time of yet more war and violence, we think of Jews and Arabs in Israel who are now in real danger, but we must not let the Israeli-Iranian hostilities obscure the evil destruction of Gaza and the starvation of its people, or the appalling situation in the West Bank. The situation is intolerable. We must support the efforts of movements such as Standing Together, which work across the religious divide, bringing Arab Israeli and Jewish Israeli communities together, working for peace, equality and social justice, desperately trying to find an end to the war. When far-right extremists recently tried to block aid going into Gaza, they formed a humanitarian guard of Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel, which enabled trucks to get through.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
The question is coming, my Lords. These organisations, together with the ones cited by my noble friend, are worthy of our support. I am glad that the Government are supporting them, but I ask all noble Lords to support these organisations, which deserve our solidarity.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
I share the opinion of my noble friend. Over the last eight years, I have been actively engaged, along with many noble Lords across the House, with a number of organisations, not least Tracks of Peace, that promote human, racial and religious tolerance, also focusing on business, education, the environment and health—issues that affect all people in Israel and the Occupied Territories. We are absolutely committed to building that dialogue, despite the horrendous situation in which people now find themselves. I thank my noble friend for her question. She is absolutely right; we should not forget the issues underlying community cohesion.
UK Leadership on Sudan
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts(6 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
The noble Baroness is absolutely right that we welcome the three-month extension, but the barriers to delivering aid are not simply that border, and it is not simply what we are able to get through. The simple fact is that both parties are imposing all kinds of constraints on it, which is why we are using our calls for the protection of civilians and the call of the Secretary-General to focus on that access issue. We are working with all NGOs, including the United Nations, to ensure that we can get that aid right through the country. We will certainly be monitoring the situation and holding those people to account. In effect, some of those parties are using starvation as a weapon of war, and we have to hold them to account for that.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, the additional money going to Sudan is very welcome, likewise the money going to neighbouring countries which are dealing with refugees. It is such a dreadful problem, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, acknowledged. I pay tribute to the noble Lord for all his work, including by giving voice to the voiceless, as he has been doing in Colombia. I know he will do that throughout the world. I also pay tribute to Tom Fletcher, who is extraordinary. The fact that he went there in his first two weeks of having been appointed to OCHA is quite amazing.
Many noble Lords have rightly spoken about civil society, but what exactly are we doing, together with the international community, to support the cultivation of an inclusive, representative, apolitical civilian bloc to provide a viable political alternative to the warring parties and to build the longer-term routes that are needed to a healthy, active Sudanese civil society that can underpin the governance systems that are so necessary?
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My noble friend is absolutely right. The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, has been working on this too, in terms of Abdalla Hamdok’s activity and the Taqaddum coalition. That coalition is seeking to broaden its base and engage all parties. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, mentioned proliferation. There are groups proliferating from this, using all kinds of conflicts that have previously occurred and reigniting them between communities. That is why, when we sat down with Abdalla Hamdok, we focused on how he needs to have the most inclusive process possible—and our allies are also focusing on this. That is not easy in all the circumstances, but it is what we are doing.
My noble friend is right that we need to ensure that we have all those voices heard. That is the most important thing, as we heard on the radio this morning with Tom’s report—like my noble friend, I think that it is great that he was able to get into Sudan so early; it shows that he will be absolutely focused on making sure that the world hears from those survivors and from those women and children who gave their first-hand accounts. We need to focus on that, which is why I am also concerned to ensure that we build that coalition not just among Sudanese within Sudan but among the diaspora here so that we get an inclusive approach to a final solution which will help to return civilian rule.