Israeli-Palestinian Peace: International Fund Debate
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Jon Pearce
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Israeli-Palestinian Peace: International Fund
Jon Pearce Excerpts(1 day, 19 hours ago)
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Jon Pearce (High Peak) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) for securing this debate. I support our Labour Government, who are taking a leading role in setting up an international fund for Israeli-Palestinian peace, as envisaged by the Alliance for Middle East Peace and advocated by Labour Friends of Israel for almost a decade. In recent months, there have been hours of debate in this place about how the UK can best contribute towards peace in the middle east following the horrific scenes of death, destruction and suffering on 7 October and the subsequent war in Gaza.
After the last serious peace process failed in 2014, it was said that
“the negotiations did not fail because the gaps were too wide, but because the level of trust was too low.”
Today, trust is in even shorter supply and neither leadership is in a position or has a mindset to make the painful compromises that peace and a two-state solution will inevitably entail. That is a challenge for all of us who want to kick-start the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and it is a challenge that only such a bottom-up initiative, rooted not in the halls of power but in civil society, can seriously resolve. It is our job to change the lack of trust to build those constituencies for peace. This is a tried and tested model, as we saw in Northern Ireland. Jonathan Powell said it was
“the great unsung hero of the peace process”.
I saw the potential when I visited Israel and Palestine on such an initiative in July 2023. I met organisations and NGOs run on a shoestring that dedicate their work to providing spaces for Israelis and Palestinians to meet and work together outside the confines of conflict. EcoPeace, for example, brings together Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians to forge new and creative solutions to climate change in a region increasingly co-dependent on natural resources. I met young Palestinian activists in Ramallah who are working to train the next generation of political leaders for the long-awaited Palestinian Authority elections and a more democratically engaged and pluralistic Palestinian future. Supporting such civil society groups is how we can play our part in changing attitudes on the ground in Israel and Palestine. That is how we will build the trust necessary for genuine progress towards peace from the bottom up.
I am delighted that the Prime Minister announced in December that we will be convening a meeting with international partners to discuss how we can take forward the G7’s commitment to supporting civil society. I look forward to hearing from the Minister about these plans, including when the meeting will take place and which partners will be attending.