Petitioning for the Palestinians
Posted by jonathanfryer on Wednesday, 4th March, 2009
This afternoon I was at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with Ajmal Masroor, LibDem prospective parliamentary candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow, with a petition from Tower Hamlets residents calling on the British government to be more proactive in promoting peace and justice in the Middle East. If I had been able to bend Gordon Brown’s ear before he went off to Washington for his parley with Barack Obama, I would have urged him to try to get the US President to commit himself to work with the EU not only to rebuild the devastated Gaza Strip but also to guarantee the creation of a viable Palestinian state and its security, just as Israel, within its proper boundaries, should have a guarantee of peace and security. For too long, the United States, with various European countries in its wake, has pursued a one-sided policy in the region, which far from helping the cause of peace, has actually hindered it. Even if Hillary Clinton and Tony Blair are not exactly the ideal sort of people I wuold have chosen to be handling the relevant dossiers, George Mitchell is a step in the right direction. And other players, such as the Arab league, need to be brought into the picture.
