{"id":1846,"date":"2014-10-14T12:31:24","date_gmt":"2014-10-14T11:31:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=1846"},"modified":"2014-10-16T11:10:04","modified_gmt":"2014-10-16T10:10:04","slug":"palestine-independence-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=1846","title":{"rendered":"Palestine independence vote"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>Yesterday (October 13) in an historic move towards peace and security for the people of Palestine, MPs voted in favour of recognising it as a state in its own right.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The vote came about after Sweden became the first major European country earlier this month, to officially recognise Palestine as a state.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bUnite has long supported the call for Palestinian statehood,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Len McCluskey, Unite general secretary. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bInjustice and denial of rights should be opposed wherever they are found in the world and the Palestinian people have waited far too long for this.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<br \/>\nAlong with Sweden the UK joins more than 100 other countries that have already recognised Palestinian statehood.<br \/>\nLabour has twice called on the government \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in 2011 and 2012 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to back Palestine&#8217;s request for official state recognition at the United Nations.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\nIn 2012, the UN General Assembly voted to upgrade the status of the Palestinians to that of a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098non-member observer state\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.<br \/>\nThis summer saw the worst violence in years as Israeli troops were sent into Gaza in response to heavy rocket fire. A cease fire was declared after 2,100 Gazans including hundreds of children, and 73 Israelis had been killed.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\nLabour MPs were whipped to support the vote in advance. A source said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe would ask MPs to vote for party policy, but they are not compelled to attend.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<br \/>\nThe full motion stated, &#8220;That this House believes that the government should recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel as a contribution to securing a negotiated two state solution.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe motion was brought forward by Labour backbencher Grahame Morris who made the point, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bNot only is statehood the inalienable right of the Palestinian people, but recognising Palestine will breathe new life into a peace process that is at an impasse.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\nLen McCluskey wrote to Douglas Alexander, shadow foreign secretary, in advance of the vote to urge Labour to support Palestine statehood. He said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe are respectfully urging you to use your position of leadership to encourage and support Labour MPs to seize this historic opportunity and vote in favour of the motion.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<br \/>\nThe result, 274 to 12, is hugely symbolic \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but the vote is non-binding, so doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t change government policy.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe know this is a non-binding vote and we have heard the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s response but as parliament has made its view so clear I hope David Cameron will read what was said in the debate, look at the current situation and think seriously about implementing this policy,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Grahame Morris MP.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis is really a historic vote. The UK Parliament is announcing it is taking its historic obligations seriously.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday (October 13) in an historic move towards peace and security for the people of Palestine, MPs voted in favour of recognising it as a state in its own right. &nbsp; &nbsp; The vote came about after Sweden became the first major European country earlier this month, to officially recognise Palestine as a state. &nbsp; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"wps_subtitle":"A momentous event in history","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1846"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1846"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1902,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1846\/revisions\/1902"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}