International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace

Nicola Richards Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Nicola Richards (West Bromwich East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) on securing this important and timely debate.

As the late, great former President of Israel and Nobel peace laureate Shimon Peres said,

“we should use our imagination more than our memory”.

His words ring truer today than ever before, as progress in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations has stalled, despite genuine efforts over the years to secure a two-state solution.

It was revealed last week that His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales placed a private donation to the Peres Centre for Peace and Innovation, an organisation founded by President Peres. This is excellent news, and it is not difficult to see why His Royal Highness was so impressed by the organisation’s indispensable work, including programmes that pave the way for mutual understanding between all of Israel’s citizens and for a lasting peace between Israel and its neighbours.

I join others today in calling on the UK Government to support the new people-to-people partnership for peace fund. I recall that the former Minister for the Middle East, Alistair Burt, endorsed the initiative a few years ago, and I sincerely hope that the Minister today will take this opportunity to reiterate the UK’s support.

The UK is rightly regarded as a world leader in the field of international development, and British taxpayers would, I am sure, take great pride in knowing that our aid is going directly to those on the ground in Israel and the Palestinian Territories who are working every day towards establishing stronger inter-community relations. Following the creation of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, I can think of no better way to display the UK’s newly stated commitment to use our international aid to advance our foreign policy goals. An outward-looking global Britain should be at the forefront of multilateral efforts to promote peace and co-existence, which lay the groundwork for a much sought after peace deal.

Beyond the region, our investment in the US Middle East Partnership for Peace Act, which is working its way through Congress with widespread bipartisan support, would send a clear signal to the incoming Biden Administration that the UK believes in its multilateral approaches to making the world a better place. It offers a welcome new channel for co-operation with our closest ally. This new vehicle for delivering aid directly to peaceful co-existence programmes, as well as supporting investments to small and medium-sized Palestinian-owned enterprises, promises to transform the region.

In recent years, the UK Government have begun to realign their aid to the Palestinian Authority away from donations to its general budget—which led to widespread misuse of aid, including the reprehensible payment of salaries to convicted Palestinian terrorists—and instead towards paying the salaries of specifically vetted healthcare and education civil servants. DFID’s announcement a few years ago of a further £3 million fund for co-existence projects marked a further step in the right direction, following growing concerns over aid abuses by the Palestinian Authority.

Constructive dialogue is possible. At the start of the covid-19 pandemic, we saw extensive co-operation and co-ordination between the Israelis and Palestinians, developing shared solutions to the problems jointly faced. I myself have visited the region and have seen the positive work in bringing both sides together. This international fund offers a viable pathway forward to ensure that aid goes directly to projects that bring Israelis and Palestinians together, all of which is overseen by a transparent system of scrutiny and review. It is a path that we must seize and support.