On January 19, DPJ Secretary General Hatoyama received Israeli Ambassador to Japan Nissim Ben-Shetrit at party headquarters, and discussed the ongoing situation in the Palestinian territory of Gaza. The meeting was also attended by International Department Director General Tetsundo Iwakuni and Vice Director General Yukihisa Fujita.

At the start of the meeting Hatoyama expressed his thanks to Ambassador Ben-Shetrit for attending the DPJ Party Convention held on the previous day. Following that, he said that while the ceasefire to the Israeli military offensive in Gaza was a welcome development, it was extremely regrettable that many people in the Palestinian territories had been killed and wounded.

In response, the Ambassador pointed out that two important issues needed to be addressed following the ceasefire. The first was the provision of humanitarian relief to the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, and the second was the international community’s continuing war on terror. He expressed the opinion that it was vital to stop weapons being smuggled into Gaza.

Furthermore, Ambassador Ben-Shetrit called for Japan’s cooperation with the construction of a passage between Gaza and the West Bank, in the event that peace should return to the region in the future.

The DPJ side commented that with the birth of the Obama administration in the United States, there was a possibility that there would be a change in the US government’s Middle East policy, and expressed the hope that Israel would also change from the methods used by the Bush administration to those advocated by the new Obama administration.