133 MPs and peers, from across parties have written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson reacting to US President Trump’s so-called Middle East ‘peace plan’. In it, the parliamentarians express their grave concern over the plan’s contents, which they say “shows contempt for the aspirations and rights of the Palestinian people and international law, and provides no realistic basis for a return to negotiations.”
The letter echoes the warning of 16 UK humanitarian, development, human rights and faith organisations that the plan may “lead to the formal annexation of Palestinian land, perpetual Israeli occupation, and the negation of Palestinians’ collective right to self-determination.”
The MPs call on the Prime Minister to reconsider the UK’s ‘welcome’ for the deal, to outline what action it will take to respond to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stated intention to annex parts of the West Bank, and to work with other countries to “demonstrate that serious breaches of international law result in serious consequences.”
Rushanara Ali MP, who led the letter after having visited the West Bank with Caabu and Medical Aid for Palestinians in May last year, said the following:
“There are grave concerns across parties in our parliament about this reckless plan and the agenda of annexation that it promotes.
“On my recent visit to the West Bank, I saw for myself the rapid deterioration in the humanitarian situation, and the extent to which the occupation has wrested away from the Palestinian people their right to self-determination and control over their daily lives. The vision presented by President Trump is one where this supposedly ‘temporary’ occupation is made permanent, condemning the region to a future of two people on the same land in a situation of perpetual inequality and injustice.
“By uncritically welcoming Trump’s unworkable and unfair ‘deal’, the government has done nothing to disabuse Palestinians of the feeling that the international community – Britain included – has forgotten their plight.”
