Sir Vincent Fean: Israelis are about to vote on the future of Palestine – and soon we will to - News
srael goes to the polls tomorrow. Earlier this month, the current Prime Minister of the only nuclear weapons state in the Middle East warned the US Congress that Israel faces an existential threat if Iran too gets the bomb.
Britain, the US and our partners are negotiating with Iran to prevent that from happening. As Roger Cohen commented in The New York Times, “One word did not appear in Netanyahu’s speech: Palestine. The statelessness of the Palestinians is the real long-term threat to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. Iran has often been a cleverly manipulated distraction from this fact”.
Israelis should not vote in another coalition which supports the illegal Israeli settler enterprise in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. How Israelis vote, and how we vote on 7 May, will define the prospects for two states living side by side in peace in the Holy Land.
How Israelis vote matters deeply to them, to the Palestinians, and to us. I was in Jerusalem for Israel’s last election in January 2013. The Israel/Palestine conflict was low down voters’ list of concerns. They elected the most pro-settler coalition that Israel has seen — one that prolonged the blockade of Gaza (now in its 8th year) and accelerated illegal settlement expansion, including Givat Hamatos, which will cut off Arab East Jerusalem from Bethlehem.
Source: www.map-uk.org