Palestine Statehood (Recognition) Bill [HL]

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Friday 14th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, when moving a similar Bill in the other place two years ago, my friend Layla Moran, whom I greatly admire as an MP and respect as a self-described daughter of Palestine but also friend of Israel, asked the Government to recognise the state of Palestine without any preconditions. As the vice-president of the Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel, though speaking in a personal capacity, I completely understand her frustration and her motivation, which I think are shared by my noble friend Lady Northover today.

I thoroughly support the creation of a state of Palestine and I agree with my noble friend that Israel needs it too. The problem with recognition now is that, as a unilateral gesture it risks being not a practical and realistic solution but a dead end, a brick wall, even increasing the frustration of Palestinians rather than increasing hope. It would not obviate the painful compromises that have to be made in bilateral negotiations by competent Governments with international support.

Obstacles often cited to the creation of two states are the existence of hundreds of thousands of Israelis living in settlements in Jerusalem and the West Bank and the demand that, as well as the many Arab Palestinian Israelis who are Israeli citizens, many more Palestinians should be allowed to return to what is now the State of Israel. In that context, I was pleased to be invited to attend a presentation a few days ago by May Pundak and Dr Rula Hardal, leaders of an organisation of Israelis and Palestinians called A Land for All. I thank Sir Richard Branson and his not-for-profit foundation Virgin Unite for sponsoring that event.

A Land for All has a very different take from the usual one on the route towards peace, security and stability for all. Of course, it envisages two independent states, Israel and Palestine, with a border on the green line, but it proposes what it calls a joint framework, allowing both peoples to live together and apart. It points out that when Palestinians refer to “Palestine”, it is to the entire area between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean—we are familiar with this recently—just as for Israelis, “Eretz Israel” refers to the same space, and that no international borders could change these connections to the homeland, and this identity. It proposes that the political solution must reflect the emotional reality and create a framework that allows members of both nations to travel and live throughout the shared homeland on the basis of political separation, yes; geographic and demographic separation, no. It wants both states to be committed to the vision of an open land, where citizens of both countries have the right to travel, work and, over time and with limitations, reside, though not get citizenship in both states.

That is a very tall order. Freedom of movement has been controversial enough in Europe, but at least A Land for All is making positive and dynamic proposals, not just a static one which might go nowhere.