Palestine Statehood (Recognition) Bill [HL]

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Friday 14th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Soames of Fletching (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly support the Bill introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover. In the very brief time available to me, I wish to concentrate on one of the major obstacles to a two-state solution: the massive Israeli settlement enterprise in the illegally occupied West Bank.

Today, the settler population of the illegally occupied West Bank—that includes east Jerusalem—numbers around 750,000 people. Back in 1993 when the Oslo accords were signed, when we dreamed of a two-state solution, the number of settlers was 250,000. Their numbers have trebled. The intention of the Israeli Finance Minister, himself a settler, is to increase those numbers to over a million. All these settlers have the full rights of Israeli citizenship. They live under Israeli civil law, unlike their Palestinian neighbours, who live under Israeli military law—two peoples in the same territory but under a discriminatory legal system.

I hope that the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, will outline the Government’s position on any further Israeli annexation of the West Bank. Will she also confirm that the Government expect Israel to adhere to United Nations Security Council Resolutions 476 and 478, of which it is in gross breach? These do not just condemn the annexation but insist that all such Israeli measures are null and void and must be rescinded.

In all, there are now nearly 300 illegal settlements in the West Bank—every one illegal, every one an obstacle to peace. During what was meant to be a ceasefire, Israel has mounted a massive military operation in the northern West Bank, starting two days after signing the ceasefire deal, using tanks in cities for the first time in 20 years and forcibly displacing 40,000 Palestinians. This is not the only example of forced displacement outside of Gaza, where 90% of the population has been forcibly displaced over the last 18 months. Israeli settler violence, aided and abetted by the Israeli army, has targeted Palestinian communities in area C, and now increasingly in area B, of the West Bank. This is forced displacement, where violence has been deployed to force these communities into the cities, so that settlers can steal even more land in occupied territory.

Israeli settlers know that they will not be arrested, let alone imprisoned. The culture of impunity that they enjoy, sadly, is akin to the impunity that Israel enjoys internationally. Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes and structures is just another tool to force Palestinians out of areas. Since 19 January 2025, the UN figures estimate that 211 structures have been destroyed during this 37-day period alone.

The legal position of the occupation is now clear, as the world’s highest court, the International Court of Justice, made clear last July. It stipulated that the Israeli occupation was illegal and a violation of the Palestinian right to self-determination and that Israel must bring the occupation to an end.

Recognising a Palestinian state on the 1967 lines, on the territory that Israel illegally occupies, would demonstrate that the Government are committed equal-handedly to international law, are committed to a two-state solution and committed to Palestinian self- determination.