Gaza

In the last but one Liberal Democrat News of 2008 Jenny Tonge had written an article detailing the then status of the plight of the Palestinian people in Gaza. This resulted in a, rather predictable, response in the last 19th December issue of the paper. The Chair of the Lib Dem Friends of Israel, Cllr Monroe Palmer, had an “another view” article and a letter writer from Kensington & Chelsea Lib Dems was, somewhat unhelpfully, comparing Hamas with the Nazis.

Due to the fact that I was trying to catch up with some of my reading during the days immediately after Christmas, I was reading these contributions whilst news coverage of Israel’s bombing of Gaza was being shown on the TV. This made for a very disturbing contrast.

So I have to agree with much of today’s post by Chris Davies MEP. Particularly his call that;

“It is time for Liberal Democrats to call a halt to the attempt to ride two horses and to try not to upset the Israeli lobby.”

The constant attempt to talk in a “balanced” manner about an extremely unbalanced situation that politicians feel they need to do when dealing with the Israel/Palestine conflict inhibits rather than encourages much needed debate.

However, I was heartened by the nature of the response of Ed Davey MP and that of Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg MP. Both, incidentally, making the important case that the role of the European Union is critical.

This content was originally posted on my old Process Guy blog.