Palestine

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Dykes]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what level of support they will give to the latest efforts of the Palestinian Authority to secure admission to full United Nations statehood.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, on 9 November the Foreign Secretary announced in a Statement to the House of Commons that the United Kingdom will abstain on any Security Council resolution on Palestinian UN membership. We will not vote against the application because of the progress that the Palestinian leadership has made towards meeting the criteria for UN membership, including statehood, but we cannot vote for the application while our primary objective remains a return to negotiations and the success of those negotiations.

[Lord Dykes]

My Lords, I understand that point but, none the less, in the general background, how long can this basic madness go on after 44 years? Indeed, over the weekend, Defense Secretary Panetta issued a very serious warning to Israel about it being isolated in the Middle East. Surely Palestine cannot be the only country in the world denied statehood at the almost exclusive request of the USA and one other country. What next step in ethical British foreign policy will be taken to promote this matter?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we certainly recognise that the case for progress on a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict has become more urgent as the pace of change across the region has quickened. The quartet issued a statement at the end of September in the context of the call for a vote in the UN, calling for negotiations to be resumed within a month. That, of course, has not succeeded. The quartet will meet again in a few weeks’ time. The possibility that negotiations will in effect end raises some very difficult questions for both parties in this conflict. Palestine remains an occupied territory. It has, however, with a great deal of support from the United Kingdom and others managed to build a number of the basic aspects of the framework for statehood. We welcome that, we have supported it, and we wish negotiations towards a two-state solution to resume as soon as possible.