Latest news with #Thornberry
Middle East Eye
6 days ago
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Emily Thornberry: Starmer has 'a golden opportunity' to sway Trump on Gaza
Keir Starmer should encourage Donald Trump to 'quietly walk away' from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) during their meeting next week, Foreign Affairs Committee chair Emily Thornberry told Middle East Eye. 'We can't have any more children starving to death, anybody else shot to death simply queuing up for aid. It's just completely and totally unacceptable,' Thornberry said on Thursday. 'Donald Trump has shown in the past, when he appreciates the human cost of what's going on, he can turn on a penny and go, 'This won't do. It must stop.'' Thornberry's comments come with the release of the Foreign Affairs Committee's report on its inquiry into the Israel-Palestine conflict. The 72-page report calls, among other recommendations, for the urgent dismantling of GHF, the controversial US and Israeli-backed organisation, with over 100 aid organisations warning this week of the spread of mass starvation in Gaza under its tenure. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters 'We have a golden opportunity to say to Donald Trump, 'Look, whatever kind of goodwill there was behind doing this, it's not working. And actually, it's not working because you can't have four aid points instead of 400'," Thornberry said. ''We have to have something which is under the auspices of the United Nations and actually there was a lot more skill in handing out aid than people really thought . . . frankly, the other system just doesn't work. Let's quietly walk away from it'.' The report also recommends that the UK government take immediate steps to "prepare a comprehensive ban" on goods imported from Israeli settlements and recognise the state of Palestine "while there is still a state to recognise". 'To be honest, nobody else is going to stop Netanyahu apart from President Trump' - Emily Thornberry, MP and Foreign Affairs committee chair Starmer and Trump's scheduled talks fall on the same day as the start of a UN conference in which France had earlier suggested it might recognise the state of Palestine. But late on Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that his country would recognise a Palestinian state in September at the UN General Assembly. British Foreign Secretary David Lammy has repeatedly said that the UK wants to recognise Palestine as part of a pathway towards a two-state solution, but at time when recognition would be most conducive to securing a peace process. Thornberry said, whether next week or in September, she would like to see the UK recognise Palestine with France. Even if the move may be 'only symbolic' in some ways, it is an important first step to getting the UK 'back into the ring and saying, 'Right. Let's play our part'," Thornberry said. 'It has a power because they were the countries behind Sykes-Picot, the secret agreement that carved up the Middle East in the first place." Palestinian recognition would underline to the Israeli people 'just how isolated Netanyahu has made Israel' and would align the UK with Arab countries in a powerful way, she said. 'I think working together, there being a united, international voice that says, 'This is the only alternative that we know about',' Thornberry said. She said she doesn't think Trump and his advisors have thoroughly considered what recognising Palestine could accomplish and, again, suggested the UK use diplomacy to encourage a shift which she believes will restore the hope that will be neccessary to rebuild Gaza. 'We can do that heavy lifting and then give to Donald Trump a peace, wrapped up in a pink bow, and say to him, 'We now need you because we can't do it by ourselves. We need the man who has more strength than 10 presidents',' she said. 'To be honest, nobody else is going to stop Netanyahu apart from President Trump.' 'We really need to be much stronger' The committee's report noted that the UK has halted trade talks with Israel which it says it expects will continue until an internationally-recognised peace settlement has been agreed. However, it said there should be "a different approach" towards Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and that the government should prepare and apply a comprehensive ban on the import of goods from the settlements. "We should not be trading with the settlements, and we should be sanctioning companies that are involved in building settlements and facilitating the settlements," Thornberry told MEE. "The settlements are built on the land that we expect to be able to be used by a Palestinian state, so it's not only illegal. It's undermining peace, and we really need to be much stronger than we have been before now." Children in Gaza die as David Lammy says UK is 'happy to do more' to help Read More » The committee also urges the government to support a medical evacuation of critically injured children to the UK, including "the provision of safe transport and the efficient handling of travel permits and entry visas". Until now, the UK has only taken in two Palestinian children for medical treatment in Britain. The two girls, who arrived in April, had already been evacuated from Gaza to Egypt before they came to the UK for care that is fully funded by charitable donations. Unlike EU countries and the US, the UK requires potential medical evacuees from Gaza to obtain visas with biometrics, with the closest visa processing centres in Egypt and Jordan. Doctors and aid workers say this has complicated the process of bringing wounded and suffering children directly from Gaza to the UK for help, and have recently asked the government to help bring a group of 20 to 40 children directly from Gaza. Thornberry said her first trip of many to Israel and Palestine was in the late 1970s when she recalled her half-sisters receiving presents on Gaza Beach from a Father Christmas who arrived on the back of a camel. "Everytime I've gone, it's gotten worse, and it breaks my heart. And, of course, when it comes to this current conflict, it's really frustrating and distressing to see what's happening and to see just long periods where nothing seems to happen apart from more and more people dying," she said. "The temptation to just look away and go, 'This is just too hard, let's do something else', is a real one . . . But now, in all the distress and destruction and the death, maybe this is the time when people will finally take this seriously and do something about it."
Spectator
7 days ago
- Politics
- Spectator
Recognising Palestine isn't a path to peace
The children of Gaza are enduring horrendous suffering. The control of aid has been restricted. Innocent lives have been set at nothing. Ruthlessness well beyond the terms of realpolitik has put hundreds of thousands at risk. The people responsible deserve global condemnation. But instead it seems they are to be rewarded. It is Hamas which is responsible for the suffering in Gaza. The terrorist organisation has, for years, used its thugs to control international development assistance to enrich its leaders and subdue the population. Its murderous – indeed, genocidal – intent was made manifest on 7 October 2023 when it unleashed an assault on innocent Israelis which resulted in the biggest single loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust. In many cases, Hamas fighters sexually assaulted their victims and gleefully celebrated their deaths. The organisation's leadership exulted in the slaughter and declared that if they could, they would kill and kill again until they had eliminated the Zionist entity. Since that attack, and the Israeli response, Hamas has demonstrated disdain not only for Jewish lives, but also Palestinian ones. By placing command posts in hospitals, putting children deliberately in harm's way and continuing to use food aid as a weapon against its own people, Hamas has shown they are not noble liberators but barbaric murderers. And the West's response to this butcher's bill? To give Hamas the political victory of recognising a Palestinian state. This week the chair of parliament's foreign affairs select committee, Emily Thornberry, was the latest MP to call for British recognition of a Palestinian state. She reflects the views of dozens on the Labour benches – and, it is feared, even the instincts of the Prime Minister himself. Later this month, France and Saudi Arabia will co-chair a conference that aims to obtain recognition of a Palestinian state. Last year, Ireland, Norway and Spain joined more than 140 other members of the United Nations in formally recognising Palestine's statehood. According to Thornberry, it is 'just a question of when' Keir Starmer does so. Before the Prime Minister contemplates any such step, he might do well to study the7 October Parliamentary Commission Report compiled by the UK-Israel All-Party Parliamentary Group chaired by Lord Roberts of Belgravia. To read it is to be reminded of who will cheer loudest if Hamas's atrocities are rewarded with diplomatic recognition. The people responsible for the indiscriminate massacre of 378 Israelis at the Nova musical festival, shot down as they were fleeing for their lives, will be jubilant once more. The terrorists who carried out the gang-rape and mutilation of female victims, filmed for the perpetrators' twisted glory, will rejoice again. The men who shot an unborn child in her mother's womb and murdered a 92-year-old Holocaust survivor before taking 250 men, women and children hostage will have new cause for celebration. The answer to such evil should not be the granting of global respectability but a determination to prevent such atrocities from happening again. That is what Israel, almost alone, is seeking to achieve. Its military campaign is based on the far-from-unreasonable desire to liberate the hostages and permanently eliminate the death cult of Hamas. For its troubles, it enjoys not sympathy and support but a wilfully blind campaign of condemnation. Recent reporting of Israel's continued distribution of food aid to Gaza has ignored the reality of aid distribution in the past, when Hamas would confiscate the support offered by the international community and use it to reward compliance and punish internal opponents. It is to the shame of some aid groups, and certainly of the United Nations' organisation UNRWA, that they made themselves the accomplices to this oppression. The reason Hamas has sought to disrupt, often violently, Israel's aid distribution is because it has been robbed of a tool of political control and a source of illicit finance. Israel's defence forces have made errors in this conflict, sometimes grievous ones. But there is a world of difference between the citizen army of a rule-bound democracy fighting a counter-insurgency campaign while seeking to rescue hostages in urban settings and a terror group that regards every innocent life lost as another propaganda win. Israel's actions in setting back Iran's nuclear weapons programme and obliterating Hezbollah's military structures have made the world safer. It has dismantled much, but not all, of the Hamas command structure. If it can further reduce the ability of Hamas to ever again conduct operations like 7 October, it will have also helped prepare the ground for a more sustainable future for the whole Middle East. A path to genuine peace relies not on the knee-jerk recognition of Palestine, but on the extension of the Abraham Accords. Saudi Arabian recognition of Israel and a broader partnership between pragmatic Arab states and Jerusalem would lay the ground for a future Palestinian state, guaranteed and supported by its Arab neighbours. If the leaders of the West truly want the best future for the Palestinian people, they will want Hamas defeated not garlanded. Choose the latter, and Islamists everywhere will know that in our hearts we are not prepared to defend democracy against barbarity.
Spectator
21-07-2025
- Politics
- Spectator
Why Britain shouldn't recognise Palestine
There is increasing speculation that the UK will recognise a Palestinian state imminently, possibly in coordination with France. On this morning's Today programme, for example, Emily Thornberry, chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, was the latest senior MP to push the idea. It sounds sensible, even obvious, doesn't it? If a 'political' solution is the only way out of the current terrible situation in the region, surely a pre-requisite is to create a so-called partner for peace with Israel. But like so many superficially sensible and obvious ideas, that's what it is: superficial. Worse, it's dangerous – and specifically dangerous for the UK. Most seriously, it would demonstrate with unambiguous clarity that terrorism works. It's easy for the likes of Thornberry to brush away with scorn (as she did this morning) the link between the October 7 massacre and recognition, but the push for the latter has arisen solely because of Israel's response to the massacre – a response which, by definition, would not have arisen if there had been no October 7. Hamas murdered 1,200 Jews, and a few months later there was a push for recognition. In May 2004, Ireland, Spain and Norway did just that. There was a clamour for the UK to join them, a clamour which may now be about to achieve its aim. The earlier recognition by Ireland, Spain and Norway has already shown that Western governments can be pushed about as a result of terrorism. Do we really want the UK to solidify that notion? But even if we ignore the impact on the Palestinians themselves as well as on the UK of proving that terror gets rewards, recognition will have a direct impact on us. First, the United States has warned that any country that takes 'anti-Israel actions' will be viewed as acting in opposition to US interests and will face diplomatic consequences. We have all seen the insouciance with which president Donald Trump can turn on a penny against close allies. At the very least, should we go against the US by recognising a Palestinian state we would be endangering the trade deal recently agreed with the US, as well as risking the imposition of steel and other tariffs. This poses a direct threat to British jobs and the UK economy – as well as destroying, in one fell swoop, all the diplomatic credit with Trump built up by Keir Starmer and Peter Mandelson, the British ambassador in Washington DC. Second, if recognition morphed into something more than a diplomatic fiction it would create an entity that is built on and functions around terror, posing an even greater threat to UK security. In this, definitions and specificity are vital. Quite what would be recognised is itself a key issue, since no generally accepted Palestinian state exists to recognise. Is it the Palestinian Authority (now in its 19th year since elections)? Would it include Gaza? Who is recognised as the state's executive? What role would Hamas play? Who funds it? What about Jerusalem? What is its border? Who patrols it? Who defends it? No one knows the answers to any of these questions because they would be the work of the hard, difficult negotiations upon which a two state solution actually depends. Every one of these and the many other unanswered questions are matters of life and death – and will have a direct impact on the UK, assuming that having recognised Palestinian state we do not then immediately declare it a terror state. Third, imagine the impact here as the hate marchers realise they have got their way. Open Jew hate is now the norm in Britain. When these people see that terror and their hate marches have led to recognition of Palestine, the scenes that we have already witnessed will look wholesome in comparison. They will have secured the first step along the road to their openly expressed desire of a Judenfrei region – from the river to the sea. The conclusion they will rightly draw is that it will be time to step up their hate campaign, if they are to move further down the road of pushing Jews into the sea – and pushing down the Jews here in the UK. For those who really care about securing a Palestinian state, recognition is indeed key to progress – but recognition of Israel, by Saudi Arabia. That would be the catalyst for real change, and it remains possible, with Trump more likely than any previous president to be able to shake the regional kaleidoscope, as he showed in his first term with the Abraham Accords. That should be the focus for serious figures, rather than the dangerous showboating of the likes of Emily Thornberry.
USA Today
25-06-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Braden Thornberry odds to win the 2025 Rocket Mortgage Classic
The Rocket Mortgage Classic is set for June 26-29 at Detroit Golf Club, and Braden Thornberry is one of the golfers who will be part of the field. There are a variety of betting markets at your disposal, if you're looking to wager on Thornberry in this week's event. Rocket Mortgage Classic details and info Watch golf on Fubo! Thornberry odds to win the Rocket Mortgage Classic Thornberry is +75000 to win the Rocket Mortgage Classic. If you bet $10 on Thornberry to win, you'd get $7,510.00 in return. PGA odds courtesy of BetMGM Sportsbook. Odds updated Wednesday at 3:04 PM ET. For a full list of sports betting odds, access USA TODAY Sports Betting Scores Odds Hub. Thornberry odds to finish in the top 5 at the Rocket Mortgage Classic The current odds on Thornberry to finish top-five at the Rocket Mortgage Classic are +14000. If you elected to bet $10 on Thornberry, you'd wind up with $1,410.00 were he to finish that high up the leaderboard. Thornberry odds to finish in the top 10 at the Rocket Mortgage Classic Other betting markets for Thornberry at the Rocket Mortgage Classic There are lots of other ways to bet on golf too. For example, you can pick who will be the leader at the end of Round 1, or whether a player will make the cut. For every tournament, there are one-on-one matchups to bet on. You'll also see 3-ball matchups, when three players are grouped together and teeing off at the same time -- pick who will finish posting the best score that day! Thornberry recent performances Thornberry has participated in 13 tournaments this season, and he is yet to finish in the top 10. Thornberry finished 41st in his only finish over his last four tournaments.
USA Today
25-06-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
How NCAA individual champ Michael La Sasso is learning to enjoy PGA Tour spotlight at Rocket Classic
Michael La Sasso admits his head is still spinning from everything that has happened the last month. On May 28, he won the NCAA individual title at Omni La Costa in Carlsbad, California, capping his junior year in style. Two weeks later, he was on the East Coast teeing it up in his first U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club, a perk that came with his win at the NCAA Championship. Now, La Sasso, a rising senior at Ole Miss and third-ranked golfer in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, is making his first start at a PGA Tour event, the 2025 Rocket Classic, playing as a sponsor exemption. Donning Rocket on his hat, the youngster is still processing the craziness of the last month as he prepares to take on Detroit Golf Club. "We were kind of joking about how many flights I've been on," La Sasso said. "It's kind of something I've not been recently exposed to, but hopefully I can in the future. Yeah, I feel like I've been on the road consistently, but it's been great. It's something that I'm fortunate to be a part of." There have been a handful of notable names to congratulate La Sasso on his victory, but the one that stands out is former Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart, now with the New York Giants. Also among those reaching out is Braden Thornberry, who won an NCAA individual title at Ole Miss in 2017, and has been a role model for La Sasso in recent years. During the NCAA Championship, La Sasso said he and Thornberry talked about handling the pressure and how La Sasso needed to enjoy the week. Then Thornberry was one of the first to reach out when La Sasso won the biggest title of his amateur career. "Braden lives in Memphis, so he comes down pretty much every Monday when their golf courses are closed. I always try and make time in my day if it's kind of trying to get out of class early or trying to go just like spend time with him, pick his brain," La Sasso said. '"He's like the nicest ever, and he's great. You ask a ton of questions, he's great to us. Just to have the ability to talk with a guy who's kind of seen everything is something that is pretty underrated." That advice has helped La Sasso process a new outlook on golf in the past month. He was late to the golf game, not really following the sport or getting into it as a player until after the 2019 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, where he was a standard bearer. He followed Martin Kaymar and Thomas Pieters that week, and he closely followed Akshay Bhatia's path of skipping college golf and turning pro, with the two sharing the same swing coach. La Sasso arrived at Ole Miss as a wide-eyed freshman still not realizing his full potential. He got closer and closer to a win but couldn't break through his first two years. Then this year, he ran away with the title at the Hamptons Intercollegiate, where he won by 11 shots. Then came the win at NCAAs. "Kind of knowing that I'm very much capable of being able to compete on a collegiate level," La Sasso said. "It was more kind of maturing a little bit, having the ability to realize all right, my time management needs to be in the right spot, kind of just knowing what it takes to actually win. "Most times you've got to think it's perfect golf for all 54 holes for us, but there's going to be some rough stretches in how you handle that and just are able to keep like a good mindset is just kind of smile is what I've kind of just been trying to take into this summer and into senior year." His busy summer will continue after the Rocket Classic, even after finally getting a chance to go home and have a quick reset. He'll be one of the favorites at the 2025 U.S. Amateur at Olympic Club in August before representing the U.S. in the Walker Cup in September, where last week he was named one of the first three selections to the 10-man team. Heading into his senior year, he has a chance to earn a PGA Tour card via PGA Tour University, where he's going to be in the top five when the Class of 2026 preseason rankings are announced later this summer. It makes weeks like this more important, as every point counts when trying to secure job status on the biggest professional golf tour in an era where Tour cards are harder to come by. But in the meantime, he's trying to enjoy the fruits of his labor. "You know, I try and keep it pretty light. Something about me is if you're not enjoying what you're doing, there's kind of no point in doing it. I try and keep a smile all the time, take it pretty light and just kind of enjoy and know where you're at. "It's so easy to get caught up in everything, especially like with all the tournaments and people, it's a little bit of a different environment, but just realize like how cool it is to actually be here, have the ability to play first PGA Tour event, very special. Just smile, take it all in and just grateful to be here."
