Occupied Palestinian Territories

Brendan Clarke-Smith Excerpts

Thursday 24th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate, at a time when the prospects for middle east peace are perhaps greater than ever before. Israel’s recent peace agreements with the UAE and Bahrain demonstrate how the outdated view that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will lead to regional peace is rooted in a lack of understanding of the issues at hand. Conflict is in no way as clearcut as it is so often presented, just as the settlements issue requires greater nuance than some are willing to provide.

While settlement expansion is counterproductive, it is worth recalling that Israel gained control of the west bank in a defensive war to maintain security and that there was no previous legitimate sovereign there. While I welcome how annexation has been taken off the table for the foreseeable future, it appears that the settlements issue can be resolved only through a negotiated peace deal that defines the borders of a sovereign Palestinian state with agreed land swaps. It is for that reason that I have greater hope for the possibility of a two-state solution following the historic signing of peace deals between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain.

I applaud the vision and bravery of the UAE and Bahrain in choosing a future of peace and reconciliation. Unlike Israel’s peace deals with Egypt and Jordan, these are likely to be much warmer in nature, with a far greater emphasis on cultural and economic co-operation.

The role of Saudi Arabia in these events is of great interest. Although the kingdom has not publicly indicated its intention to agree a peace deal with Israel in the immediate future, it is clear that Riyadh and Jerusalem are co-operating in a way that has never happened before. The fact that Bahrain has agreed a peace deal with Israel is significant, as the Gulf state is widely regarded as a close ally of Saudi Arabia. Let us consider the point that Saudi Arabia has permitted flights to and from Israel to use its airspace, including by Israel’s flag carrier, El Al, in a region all too often beset by violence. These are momentous developments, and I call on my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary to do everything he can to support this new relationship.

We must not forget that it was Saudi Arabia that instigated and led the Arab peace initiative of the 2000s, which ushered in a decades-long consensus in the Arab world. The price of normalisation and recognition of Israel was the creation of a Palestinian state. As the years passed and the impasse grew, commentators and analysts increasingly speculated that the initiative had simply emboldened the Palestinians in their rejectionism in relation to repeated peace initiatives, as they adopted a maximalist approach, yet a pivot towards a better future built on peace, prosperity and shared interests has shattered this consensus.

While international efforts have historically focused on unlocking the impasse between Israel and the Palestinians to enable peace, the United States has emphatically shown that peace is possible from the outside in. The Palestinian Authority’s joint rejection of the peace deals, alongside Hamas, is deeply regrettable. The peace agreements clearly recommitted the signatories to a just and enduring solution for the Palestinians, and I hope that the Palestinians will choose to engage instead of continuing their accusations of betrayal. After all, the strategy of prolonging the conflict and rejecting successive peace offers has repeatedly harmed the hope of ordinary Palestinians for statehood. Now is the time for change.