Foreign Affairs is one of my main interests in Parliament; I have a particular interest in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and, importantly, in the middle-east peace process intended to resolve it.

Israel and Palestine is a fantastic region, with a wonderfully rich history, beautiful scenery and really great people and it is nothing short of a tragedy that, for the past 60 years, Arab and Jew have been in conflict over the same relatively small piece of land.

I want to start this post by saying something which has, sadly in my opinion, become very contentious on the left in British politics in recent years: I consider myself to be a ‘friend’ of Israel. Of course, as parliamentary chair of Labour Friends of Israel, you might expect that statement to be a given. Actually I consider myself equally a ‘friend’ of Palestine and the Palestinian people, too. I don’t actually see why one should cancel out the other, particularly if we believe in a peace process where ultimately there will be two viable and secure states side-by-side, as I do.

I first visited Israel and the Palestinian Territories in 2007, and I have since led delegations of British MPs to the region in both 2008 and 2009. We get to meet a cross section of key people in Israel and Palestine including Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, US Lieutenant General Dayton and Quartet Representative, Tony Blair; through to the aid agencies, charities, teachers, doctors working hard on the ground for peace. We get from them all a clear understanding of the issues and the work being done to bring the two sides together.

Every time I visit the region, I am struck by the real optimism for the future despite all the seemingly intractable issues still on the table left unresolved. It is also very easy to focus on the things not going right and to ignore that real progress is actually being made too.

For example, in recent weeks, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has agreed to a US proposal for indirect peace talks with the Israeli government. That has to be a good thing. The British government has also continued to call for the resumption of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority towards a two state solution and the Egyptian and Jordanian leaderships have made positive statements on the need for renewed talks.

Movement and access, and the availability of water, continues to improve in the West Bank due to increased Israeli-Palestinian Authority cooperation. Indeed, the visible changes in Ramallah just between my visits in 2008 and 2009 were remarkable. The West Bank economy is growing by over 7% a year, assisted greatly by the lifting of movement restrictions as the British and US trained Palestinian policing units take more control over internal security; and it shows!

There is the problem of Hamas in Gaza, of course. This is a ‘two state’ peace process, not ‘three states’ but Palestinian unity is proving very difficult to achieve, despite Egypt’s best endeavours to bring Fatah and Hamas together. Equally, as life for ordinary Palestinians in the West Bank improves considerably, the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip remains dire with Israel and Egypt severely restricting the quantity and type of goods allowed into the territory in an effort to prevent Hamas from manufacturing and firing rockets.

As a result, much of the extensive infrastructure damage caused by last winter’s Israeli military operation is yet to be repaired. The British government rightly pledged £54 million in emergency aid over the last year to meet the needs of the people of Gaza, and in December 2009, DfID pledged an additional £5 million for teachers for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which provides schooling for 206,000 children in the territory.

So some things are improving – albeit I admit very slowly on the political front – and there are still some very difficult issues to be resolved on Jewish settlements, final borders and on the eventual status of Jerusalem. There is also a niggling fear in the minds of ordinary Israeli citizens that, despite the recent period of quiet, rocket attacks could easily be resumed from both Gaza and Lebanon.

Let me end this post on an optimistic note: In a CNN interview on 7 February, King Abdullah of Jordan urged the USA to give the peace process its “undivided attention”, asserting that “the overwhelming majority of Israelis and Palestinians want a two-state solution as soon as possible”. He’s right.

Can a lasting peace be achieved soon? With that renewed effort, I very much hope so! The opportunities and benefits for the region are there to be grabbed. After 60 years of conflict, the time is indeed right.