Palestinian Communities: Israeli Demolitions Debate
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Matt Rodda
Main Page: Matt Rodda (Labour - Reading East)Department Debates - View all Matt Rodda's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Palestinian Communities: Israeli Demolitions
Matt Rodda Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Stephen Kinnock
I will just make a little more progress and then I will give way.
The Oslo generation have also seen 50,000 homes and properties demolished, often resulting in the forced displacement of families and entire communities, and the construction of an illegal separation barrier, which carves up the west bank and brutally disconnects towns, cities, families and communities from each other. They have also seen, for the first time in history, the separation of the historic cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
On Jerusalem and the unfortunate and misguided announcement from the US President, will my hon. Friend comment on the restatement of British policy at Prime Minister’s Question Time today that Jerusalem should not be dealt with in the way the US President suggests?
Stephen Kinnock
I thank my hon Friend. I very much welcome the Prime Minister’s comments at Prime Minister’s questions. That was a very important restatement of very important principles. Let us just hope that she may be able to have some form of constructive conversation with the President of the United States about that, although having a constructive conversation with that particular gentleman seems to be a difficult thing to do.
Jerusalem, the city of three faiths, is under constant threat as a political pawn. There is the separation of the west bank and Gaza, with a 2 million population trapped in the tiny Gaza strip, in what some have called the world’s largest open-air prison, thanks to the land, sea and air blockade of Gaza. One third of the 2 million people crammed into Gaza’s 139 square miles are under 15, and almost half are under 25. A 10-year-old child will already have lived through three major wars. That is no way to grow up. In short, any young person born at the time of the Oslo accords has seen only diminishing rights and freedoms, less security and a fragmented territory that pushes the possibility of a two-state solution even further away.