Israel and Gaza Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Lord Swire
Main Page: Lord Swire (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Swire's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(7 months ago)
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Lord Swire (Con)
Does my noble friend the Foreign Secretary share my concern that the continuing withholding of the now $430 million under the Israel-Norway Accord, which is largely from Palestinian tax revenues, fatally undermines the authority of the Palestinian National Authority? What more can he do to ensure that money gets to them, and quickly?
Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)
My noble friend is absolutely right. One of the most important things we can do in trying to bring this conflict to a conclusion is to work on the political measures that are going to be necessary to deal with these problems. One of them is to strengthen the Palestinian Authority, which needs the money that Israel is holding back from it. We have pressed the Israelis about that again and again. I would still say to the Israelis that you cannot fight something with nothing. You may not think the Palestinian Authority is ideal; you may think that it fails in many respects; but you need to find a partner that is not Hamas that you can work with in Gaza on the West Bank, and that partner should be the new technocratic government run by the Palestinian Authority.