The Liberal Party has watched with horror as the unfolding conflict in the Middel East spawned by the brutal Hamas attack on Israel.
The escalating conflict has seen world opinion becoming dangerously polarised between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian camps and this threatens to obstruct moves to end the violence, deliver humanitarian supplies, and create a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
The party believes that the road to peace in Gaza and the West bank is a long and difficult one, which requires many hard truths to be confronted.
Israel has failed to be magnanimous in victory since 1967 and has progressively eroded the potential for a 2-state solution in the region. It has encouraged a policy of illegal settlements on the West Bank, the eviction of Arab families in Jerusalem and discrimination against Palestinians across the West Bank and Israel.
All of this has fed into a cycle of increasingly violence, drawing in increasing fanatical factions such as Hamas and Hezbollah who have fed on the desperation of ordinary Palestinian’s who only wish to live in peace on their own land.
A conflict which traces its roots back beyond the creation of the Israeli state in 1948 has heaped misery and suffering on all sides for want of tolerance, compromise, and compounded by the failure of the international community to enforce a durable settlement.