Israeli-Palestinian Peace: International Fund
Luke Akehurst Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) on securing this important debate.
As a supporter of a two-state solution to achieve an independent state of Palestine and a secure Israel, I welcome the opportunity to further our commitment to forming an international fund for Israeli-Palestinian peace to build civil society and to encourage reconciliation.
I am proud that before being elected, I worked for 13 years as the director of an organisation called We Believe in Israel. However, it was not just a pro-Israel organisation; it was committed to a two-state solution and national self-determination for both peoples, Jews and Palestinians. That role means that I have travelled many times to both Israel and the west bank. I have seen many examples of magnificent work to promote peace and co-existence, and I have met many inspiring Israeli and Palestinian voices for peace. An example of those is the organisation Roots, which is a grassroots movement for
“understanding, non-violence and transformation among Israelis and Palestinians”.
It also means that the appalling terrorist attacks on 7 October 2023 and the subsequent dreadful war do not just relate to places that I have only seen on the news; they have affected communities and families that I have visited and met. One of the things I find most painful is that the communities that bore the brunt of the attacks on 7 October were communities that were deeply committed to co-existence and to helping their neighbours in Gaza. I could say many more things about the situation, both as it was on 6 October and as it has transpired after 7 October, but because of the limited time that we have and the need to enable more people to participate in the debate, I will cut short what I was going to say.
We need to launch a diplomatic process towards ending the conflict, but it cannot just be a top-level diplomatic process between leaders; it must involve a grassroots diplomatic and co-existence process that marginalises the enemies of peace with a new strategy. We need to find organisations like Roots that bring together Israelis and Palestinians and build genuine understanding between them, that educate communities away from the ideologies and ideas of violence and bring them towards the ideas of peace and co-existence. We need to provide all the support that we can to those organisations that are struggling to build a sustainable, peaceful middle east.
Oral Answers to Questions
Luke Akehurst Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Alex Baker (Aldershot) (Lab)
Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Stephen Doughty)
I can confirm that, alongside our G7 allies, UK support for Ukraine is iron clad. We have already made it clear that we will provide £3 billion a year of military support for Ukraine for as long as that is needed. We are investing in Ukraine’s defence industrial base and we are ratcheting up the pressure on Putin’s war machine and on third-country supplies. I am delighted that the Chancellor has today announced that we will provide £2.26 billion in additional support to Ukraine as part of the G7 extraordinary revenue acceleration loans to Ukraine scheme.
Stephen Doughty
I agree with my hon. Friend: Putin’s shocking and barbarous attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure have increased the vulnerability of millions of Ukrainians before this winter. That is why I have announced and signed off £20 million in additional support for Ukraine’s energy system. We are working with partners across Europe and in the G7 to support Ukrainians in this area.
Luke Akehurst
Does my hon. Friend agree that Ukraine’s rightful place is with other European democracies in the NATO alliance?
Stephen Doughty
My hon. Friend will know that the NATO Secretary-General was in London recently alongside President Zelensky, where the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary welcomed them. Our allies have made it clear that Ukraine’s future is in NATO and, indeed, in Washington they confirmed that Ukraine is on an irreversible path to NATO membership. We will play a leading role in supporting Ukraine’s pathway to membership.
Hamas Attacks: First Anniversary
Luke Akehurst Excerpts(1 year, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jon Pearce
The clarion call from this Parliament is “Bring them home.” Hamas were indiscriminate in their killing and in those that they dragged back to their terror tunnels in Gaza. They range from nine-month-old Kfir Bibas and four-year-old brother Ariel to 85-year-old Shlomo Mansour. Shlomo survived the 1941 Farhud pogrom in Iraq and emigrated to Israel at the age of 13. On 7 October, Shlomo was kidnapped from his home at the small, quiet kibbutz of Kissufim.
Last month I met Shlomo’s granddaughter, Noam. I also met Eviatar David’s mother, Galia, and brother, Ilay. On 7 October, 23-year-old Eviatar was seized at the Supernova festival. His family and friends hold weekly dance and jam sessions in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square to raise awareness of his continuing plight. I also met Sharone Lifshitz, the daughter of 85-year-old Yocheved and 84-year-old Oded. On 7 October the couple were taken from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz. Yocheved was freed after two weeks, but Oded remains in captivity. Oded has spent his life campaigning for peace and Palestinian rights.
Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate on this profoundly sad occasion. I wish to draw attention to a thread that has gone through everything he said, which relates to the nature of the communities on the Gaza border that were attacked. One of the tragic ironies is that this was an attack on communities that were almost all kibbutzim and moshavim. These were idealistic communities founded on a co-operative ethos, the residents of which practised what they preached about co-existence and peace. I visited such communities in peacetime. They are bucolic and idealistic. The people there spoke about sending money across the border to people they knew in Gaza through third countries, in order to support them. They organised transport to hospitals for people from Gaza. They were people straining every sinew to bring about peace and who believed in a two-state solution. I cannot stop thinking about the horrors that were visited on them that day. I thank my hon. Friend for giving us the opportunity to honour the memory of the people who suffered on that day.
Jon Pearce
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and could not agree more with his experience of the kibbutz. In July 2023 I visited Kibbutz Kfar Aza, which was founded by the Mizrahi refugees from Morocco and Egypt in 1951. The kibbutz is so close to Gaza that it is possible to hear the mosques’ call to prayer. Over lunch with the kibbutzniks, they told us about the ever-present danger of rocket attacks and the terror tunnels that Hamas had attempted to dig nearby. They also spoke of their compassion for the ordinary people of Gaza just a couple of miles away.