Palestine and Israel

Debate between Robert Jenrick and Jeremy Corbyn

Monday 13th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I hear the hon. Lady’s comments and hope that she is correct. We, of course, will be only the 130-somethingth country to have signed up to recognition and none of the previous nations has achieved a change.

Passing the motion will certainly antagonise and weaken to some extent our relationship with Israel and Israelis—a relationship that, for all Israel’s manifest faults and frailties, I value and the House should value in a dangerous world. In a peace process, we do not show solidarity to one by antagonising and alienating the other, diminishing our relatively limited influence on events.

I do not say that the case has been convincingly disproved either. In the short term, passing the motion will not make peaceful settlement more likely; it may not have any impact at all. The long-term consequences of our recognising Palestine at this time are unclear and anyone’s guess, even given the knowledgeable and informed comments that we have heard this evening. Unintended consequences abound in this region.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Some 135 nations have already recognised Palestine. They obviously thought about that before they did it. They are happy with what they have done and believe that it gives a recognised right to a people who have been denied one. Should we not just join them?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am putting the argument that I want a well thought out strategy to end the conflict. I do not believe that this is the time for gestures. I hope hon. Members forgive the naivety of the second newest Member of the House—I welcome the newest one to her place—but I believe that this is a serious country and that we should pursue a serious foreign policy, based not on gestures, however well intentioned, but on our best efforts to address the unending quest for security and peace in the middle east. That applies in Iraq, where our decision not to address ISIS in Syria is not as serious a position as we could or perhaps should be taking. I believe that that also applies in respect of this motion.

I appreciate the powerful urge to leave this Chamber contented and able to face our electorates having done something. I am not alone in having received hundreds of e-mails and letters urging me to support this motion. I appreciate the urge to respond to the horrors of the summer in Gaza and the continued, impossibly frustrating impasse. However, if we believe in peace, we have to do what most advances it, and I do not believe that passing this motion is that. The British Government should use what influence they have once again to urge Prime Minister Netanyahu to sit down and negotiate, with no preconceptions, a realistic peace based on a two-state solution, and to urge President Abbas to accept the offer. My priority is to get the Palestinians a viable state rather than make a modest gesture here or have a momentary victory in the United Nations that will raise expectations but do little in the long term to further the interests of peace.