Kuwait lawmakers demand government drops support for two-state solution amid Jerusalem violence

The Gulf nation's parliament passed a motion more than a decade ago demanding Kuwait withdraw from the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative and other forms of support for a two-state solution, but authorities did not comply.

Israeli police stormed Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque complex on Monday, for the third day in a row and fired rubber-coated bullets, tear gas, and stun grenades at worshippers gathered during the final days of Ramadan.

Dozens of Palestinians have been injured through police violence in occupied East Jerusalem, where some 500 Palestinians are also facing expulsion from their homes in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

In a statement calling for an emergency meeting by the Arab League's Arab Parliament, Kuwaiti Parliament Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanim condemned the ongoing attempt to evict the Palestinian families from East Jerusalem as "ethnic cleansing".

The Arab body must meet to "take a clear and decisive stance against" this "ethnic cleansing" and the violence directed against worshippers in the Al-Aqsa compound, Al-Ghanim said.

Kuwait must take responsibility for its actions and end support for the Arab Peace Initiative, the parliament speaker said.

The 2002 proposal forwarded by Saudi Arabia advocates for a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem, with Israel retreating to its pre-1967 borders.

The Arab League-endorsed proposal, which offers normalisation of relations between Arab nations and Israel in return for a two-state solution, is contentious among both Palestinians and Israelis.

Kuwait's parliament has also called for the country to drop the use of the word "Israel" in official statements, replacing it with the term "Zionist entity".


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