Nick de Bois – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nick de Bois on 2014-06-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the implications for the Middle East peace process of then-Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh’s statement in April 2014 that kidnapping Israelis was a top priority on the agenda of Hamas and the Palestinian resistance.

Hugh Robertson

The statement made by the then-Hamas Prime Minister in April 2014 was deplorable and only serves to perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The new Palestinian interim technocratic government contains no Hamas members, and has signed up to the international community’s principles: non-violence, a negotiated two state solution, and an acceptance of all previous agreements and obligations, including Israel’s legitimate right to exist. We now look to the new government to demonstrate these commitments through its actions as well as its words.