Palestine Statehood (Recognition) Bill [HL]

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Friday 14th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I too pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, for this important debate.

As recently as July last year, our Secretary of State, David Lammy, stated:

“We are committed to recognising a Palestinian state as a contribution to a peace process, at a time that is most conducive to that process”.—[Official Report, Commons, 30/7/24; col. 1150.]


I ask an obvious question: if not now, when? When will this “most conducive” time arrive? What precisely is the United Kingdom waiting for before extending formal recognition to the state of Palestine? The people of Palestine have waited long and painfully. We have heard assurances, but we want to see action. Parliamentarians have voted for this, and I am sure they will vote for it again.

I urge this House for a number of reasons. There cannot be peace in the Middle East without a two-state solution. Whatever was said just now, people on both sides are suffering the pain of what has taken place over the last couple of years. You cannot have a two-state solution without a Palestinian state. Recognising Palestine is not something we should do at the end of a set of peace talks. It is what we need to do to get those talks started. It levels the playing field, and any of us who have ever been involved in mediations know how important that is. It gives the peace process a real chance. It is a catalyst for peace talks rather than an obstacle to them. It provides a clear framework for negotiations, acknowledging that both Israelis and Palestinians have legitimate rights and aspirations.

Recognising Palestine sends a clear message that we support the people on both sides who want peace. It strengthens the voices of moderates in Israel and Palestine, and it sends a clear message against further Israeli plans to annex the West Bank. It would really send a message about the idea of expelling Palestinians from Gaza or the creation of a grand holiday resort, built on the bones of the many who lie still dead under the rubble—to lie your towel out on the sands still soaked in the blood of women and children. Is it any wonder that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, used the words “illegal, immoral and impractical” to describe the horror that sent through so many people in the world? To see Netanyahu smiling at the suggestion by President Trump was shocking. What we are talking about here is forced displacement, which is a crime in international law.

I just want to counter the legal opinion that has been given to your Lordships on what defines statehood. No court would acknowledge what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has said when all those criteria have been prevented—indeed, by Israel. That is the point. Why are there refugees? Let me just give your Lordships a quote—I am sorry about the time, but I want to put this before the House:

“In March 2019, Netanyahu told his Likud colleagues: ‘Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas … This is part of our strategy—to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank’”.


That was to counter the very criteria that we were talking about.

I have been to Israel many times and have many friends there. I visited Jerusalem back in March 1999, and I met Leah Rabin. She took my hands, and I was paying tribute to her husband and the sadness I felt about his death and his assassination, when she said, “Netanyahu killed my husband”. I frowned and thought, “What does she mean?”. She said, “The night before my husband was killed, Netanyahu led a demonstration in which there was behind him a coffin with my husband’s name written out on the top of it. It was an incitement to extremist settlers”. The settlements themselves have prevented peace in that part of the world. It is said that we would be compensating Hamas; we are compensating breaches of international law by not recognising the state of Palestine.