Palestine: United Nations General Assembly Resolution

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, I commend the noble Baroness for securing a debate at this time on an issue that transcends all party differences. On 29 November 1947, the United Nations voted in Resolution 181—with 33 for, 13 against and 10 abstentions: in other words, voted very powerfully—for the establishment of the State of Israel. It also wanted to see the establishment of a Palestinian state. On 29 November 2012, the United Nations voted again, and 138 out of the now 193 member states voted for the possibility of moving towards a new member state. They did not declare that it was a state, only that it was moving towards being a state.

Who voted against? Panama, Palau, Nauru, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, the Czech Republic, Israel, the United States and Canada. How is it possible that the State of Israel, which was brought into being by an overwhelming majority vote in the United Nations, has contrived over the subsequent years to so lose the confidence of other member states that it finds itself with so little support in its opposition to the perfectly reasonable demand for a Palestinian state?

The peace process has been paralysed for years. There has been no peace process for years. I speak as someone who spends a considerable amount of time working on this issue and on events in the region. Huge changes are taking place—and they are not for the better. The world has changed. I do not think that some of our colleagues in this country, in Israel and certainly in the United States realise that the world has already changed. It is the kind of change that took place in the run-up to, and after, the First World War. The balance of power is different. Changes take place because of changes in technology. Having massive military power in the old sense no longer cuts it. It no longer stops or starts major political change.

It is said by many in the Israeli establishment that there is no partner for peace. Therefore, what is the objection to recognising a nascent state that can become a partner for peace? If there is to be a partner for peace, and if the complaint is that Palestinians are fragmented, surely this creates the opportunity for the various elements in the Palestinian state to come together—for Hamas, Fatah and others to become a partner for peace. However, I think that we have gone beyond all of that. It is no longer clear that a two-state solution is possible. If it is not, there are only two other obvious possibilities that I can see. One is a single state, which manifestly cannot be a Jewish state if it is democratic. The other is some form of chaos and war in the region. It is wholly possible that that is what we are looking at: we are sliding into a regional war.

What is the alternative? It is that we look to a regional process to create stability in the region. Noble Lords will not be at all surprised that I speak about such a process because I have been banging on about it for years. I have not for years seen the possibility of Israel and the Palestinians negotiating an outcome, and I do not any more see the United States providing a particularly useful role in achieving it. There was a time when it could have. There was a time when the European Union could have played a role of this kind, but it is so intent on focusing on its internal problems that it has not been able to provide any kind of useful contribution to the peace process. There is a great urgency about the development of a regional process to save us from regional chaos and to give the possibility of the establishment of a Palestinian state living in peace and stability alongside the State of Israel.

In this regard, I say with great sadness that our country this time is on the wrong side of history. This is a serious error of judgment. This was an opportunity to rescue the reputation of this country in a region that has not been impressed by the military adventures of the past 10 or 15 years. It was an opportunity for our country to say clearly that we support our friends in the State of Israel but that we do not give them a veto on our policy, or who we talk to, or who we are prepared to engage with. I do not expect my friends to tell me who I can and cannot talk to; I expect them to come along with me to talk to people. If my friends say they want a partner, I try to establish a relationship with that partner. Instead, we as a country find ourselves closing in, in a way which—whatever our Israeli Government colleagues say—is not good for Israel, never mind for this country.

I spent the past weekend organising two international conferences in London. At the second was a very senior Israeli—a senior, very Jewish, very Israeli Israeli. His commitment to his country, in diplomatic, political, academic and security terms, had been, he said, “my whole life”. I asked him what he thought of the vote. He said: “Israel should have supported the vote. It should have made it clear that it wants a partner for peace and wants to give Palestinians an opportunity to get together as a state to be a partner for peace”. Recognition of a developing Palestinian state does not define its boundaries; that is part of the problem. It does not describe its population; that is part of the problem. It does not tell us how we are going to relate the various different Swiss-cheese parts of its territory; that is part of the problem. However, it does give a partner with whom to engage in a peace process.

It saddens me greatly, and frightens me greatly, that we face such dangerous times in that region, from which we will not escape. On this occasion our Government did not do the right thing for the country. I hope that they can review their approach, not in terms of the vote, as the vote is past, but in terms of how we engage to ensure a regional process towards stability. Otherwise we will, I fear, observe a regional descent into chaos.