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Roger meets with Hamas Leadership

11 May 2009

During a Parliamentary visit to Syria from 12th to 19th April Roger Godsiff led a delegation of MPs to meet with Khalid Meshaal, who is the Chief of the Political Bureau of Hamas.

Said Roger “At the meeting, where I was accompanied by MPs from both the Labour and Conservative Party, we had the opportunity of listening to the official views of Hamas on both the current situation in Gaza and the West Bank and their ideas about how the way forward in the region was, in their opinion, likely to evolve. All Parliamentarians who attended also took the opportunity to question Khalid Meshaal about Hamas policy and the recent events surrounding the invasion of Gaza by the Israeli army.

We have to deal with the reality of the world as it is, including the Middle East, and this means that there needs to be engagement and dialogue with Hamas even if we disagree with them on any, or all, of their policies or actions. Hamas was elected as the majority party in Gaza and international observers confirmed that these elections were properly conducted. Elections have recently taken place in Israel and the democratic process in that country has delivered a Government consisting of certain parties and individuals who many people in other parts of the world may not like or agree with. The only alternative to engagement and dialogue is to accept that conflict will continue and the main sufferers will be ordinary Palestinians and Israelis most of whom want to see a just and fair settlement in the region, which will meet the legitimate demands of the Palestinian people and will also give lasting security to the people in Israel