Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Gentleman underlines what I said—that the condemnation of the killings at the weekend is shared across the House—and he makes the powerful point that peace in the middle east will be built on contact between citizens and civil society as well as on the decisions of political leaders. I certainly join him in congratulating those organisations on their work. We also urge Israeli and Palestinian leaders to make the most of that work and to seize the opportunities in the coming weeks to advance the peace process.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

No doubt the Palestinian Authority has made some genuine progress towards its road map obligations, but has the Foreign Secretary had a chance to assess the role of the Palestinians in inciting the sort of attacks that we saw last weekend?

[Mr Hague]

I am sure that it is not the Palestinian Authority who incite attacks of that kind, which my hon. Friend might see if he looks at what Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has done to build the attributes of a Palestinian state on the west bank. The last thing he wants is incidents of that kind. Of course, we do not know who incited those events, but I feel confident that it was not the Prime Minister and the President of the Palestinian Authority.