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After Temple Mount riots, May urged to push Palestinians to end incitement

LFI chair also asks the PM to support the 'measured response of the Israeli authorities in introducing enhanced security measures to protect this important holy site'

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The chair of Labour Friends of Israel has urged Theresa May to tell the Palestinian Authority to “cease all incitement, particularly that surrounding the Temple Mount”, and has said the Prime Minister should make “deep and meaningful” cuts in British aid if the PA fails to do so.

Joan Ryan, MP for Enfield North, also asked Mrs May to “make clear our government’s support for the entirely reasonable and measured response of the Israeli authorities in introducing enhanced security measures to protect this important holy site and those who wish to worship at it.

“Having suffered a series of terrorist attacks ourselves in recent months, I am sure you will be keen to show Britain’s solidarity with those in Israel who are also under attack”.

Ms Ryan also detailed a long list of examples of Palestinian incitement, including children’s poems referring to Jews as “barbaric monkeys”, “wretched pigs” and “filth”, as well as naming schools after terrorists.

She also quoted inflammatory statements by Palestinian officials on the issue of the Temple Mount, including a 2015 speech by the Mahmoud Abbas, President of the PA, in which he said: “The Al-Aqsa [Mosque] is ours... and they have no right to defile it with their filthy feet”.

Ms Ryan said she “support[ed] funding the PA and agree with the government that funding teachers, doctors and nurses is a good use of our aid money.

“But I do not believe that we can simply ignore and be silent on the question of incitement any longer.

“Therefore, failure to carry out this request should be met with deep and meaningful cuts in British aid to the PA, with the money instead redirected to coexistence projects and health and education projects in Palestine run by trusted NGOs”.

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