More than half of the Israeli public would like to see a meeting between prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, according to a poll commissioned by the Geneva Initiative Israel NGO. When asked whether Israel should enter political talks with the PA, 52.8 percent said yes, Read more…
Saudi Arabia will not normalise ties with Israel without progress towards a two-state solution with the Palestinians, the kingdom’s top diplomat asserted last week. The comments by Prince Faisal bin Farhan al Saud, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, followed reported discussion of the topic between Israeli prime minister Read more…
Today, LFI chair Steve McCabe MP and LFI Lords chair Baroness Ramsay have written to the Israeli Ambassador, Tzipi Hotovely, to express their concern about the appointment of certain ministers to the new coalition government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. In the letter, Steve and Meta make clear that their Read more…
The Moroccan military announced this week that it had agreed to strengthen military cooperation with Israel, including in intelligence and cybersecurity, following defence meetings in Rabat. The two countries “agreed to further strengthen cooperation and expand it to other areas, including in intelligence, air defence and electronic warfare”, a Read more…
Labour came out in support of proscribing the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps this week, as the Iranian regime continues its attempts to crush protestors. What happened On Saturday, Iran announced that it had executed a dual Iranian-British national, Ali Reza Akbari, who had previously served a deputy defence minister, amid Read more…
LFI parliamentary supporter Kim Leadbeater has today written to prime minister Rishi Sunak to push him to pledge UK participation in the International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, a longstanding LFI campaign goal. The letter referenced Sunak’s comments to Conservative Friends of Israel in December 2022, in which he committed to Read more…
At a backbench business debate on the treatment of protestors in Iran yesterday, Labour’s shadow minister for the Middle East, Bambos Charalambous MP, called for a “coordinated international approach” to deal with the Iranian regime that would require “maximum pressure” to succeed. In his comments, Charalambous said that a “coordinated Read more…
A number of LFI MPs and their colleagues have today used a backbench business debate in the House of Commons on the treatment of protestors in Iran to push the government to adopt a more comprehensive strategy towards Iran. In the debate, LFI vice-chair John Spellar MP twice repeated LFI’s Read more…
The UK government is reportedly preparing to proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, following a longstanding campaign by LFI and many Jewish community groups. The IRGC is a hugely influential apparatus of the Iranian state, spearheading operations against opponents of the regime at home and abroad, especially in entrenching Iran’s influence in Iraq, Read more…
The parliament of Oman, which has widely been speculated to be a prime candidate for future diplomatic normalisation with Israel, voted last week to criminalise relations or interactions with “the Zionist entity”. The legislation would “severe any economic, sports or cultural relations” and “prohibit dealing in any way or means, Read more…
Tens of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets in recent weeks to show their opposition to the formation of Israel’s most right-wing government. What happened The new coalition government, led by former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is made up of six parties: right-wing Likud, far-right Religious Zionism and Otzma Read more…
Labour Friends of Israel was delighted today to partner with the Jewish Labour Movement to organise a series of sessions on Israel and the Middle East as part of their one-day conference. First up was a fascinating discussion between Dame Louise Ellman and Labour’s shadow Middle East minister Bambos Charalambous, Read more…