UK Opposition Leader Says His Government Would Recognize Palestinian State
by JNS.org
JNS.org – The leader of the UK’s opposition Labour Party said a government under his leadership would recognize a Palestinian state.
Posting to Twitter during a visit to Jordanian refugee camps on the border with Syria, Corbyn said “The next Labour government will recognise Palestine as a state as one step towards a genuine two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.”
On Saturday, Corbyn visited to the Al-Baza’a Palestinian refugee camp near Amman, the country’s largest refugee camp, created in 1968 following the Six-Day War and currently home to over 100,000 people.
Jordan has refused to give citizenship to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, though the nationality comprises over half the country’s population. Non-Jordanian Palestinians are not eligible for free education or subsidized healthcare, cannot be employed by the state, and are ineligible to practice organized professions such as law, due to ineligibility for membership in Jordanian professional associations. Those who do hold Jordanian citizenship can have the nationality revoked.
Corbyn has been accused of being motivated by antisemitism, with a letter sent to him by the leaders of the British Jewish community in March, accusing him of issuing “empty statements about opposing antisemitism, but does nothing… because he is so ideologically fixed within a far-left worldview that is instinctively hostile to mainstream Jewish communities.”
Corbyn has criticized US President Donald Trump for his official recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, calling it a “catastrophic mistake.”