Abraham Accords

Lord Hannan of Kingsclere Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, the prophet Abraham, after whom these accords are named, is remembered five times a day in the prayers of devout Muslims. He is a towering figure in Islam. He has the title Khalilullah—friend of God—and is seen as the ancestor of Moses, who watches over our proceedings stony-faced, Jesus and the Prophet Muhammad. However, he himself is not seen as Christian, Jewish or Muslim. He is rather a sort of primordial monotheist who lives instinctively within divine law and recognising divine justice.

In the Jewish and, by extension, Christian traditions, the salient fact is that he is a wanderer who settles down. The Bible says that Abraham

“spake unto the sons of Heth … I am a stranger and a sojourner with you … give me … a buryingplace with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight”.

The return of Jews to Israel was with an overriding wish to be welcomed home—to have nothing more than peace with their neighbours. Finally, that prospect is on the horizon. It is a great cosmic irony that, just as Israel is improving its relations with its Arab neighbours, it is worsening its situation with many western and European countries, but that is a topic for a different debate.

I think these accords came about because other Arab states realised that it was no longer feasible to give an effective veto to the most hard-line elements in the Palestinian leadership. They saw that, even when offers were made, as under Ehud Barak or Ehud Olmert, that would have given 95% or an equivalent of 100% of the territory with land swaps and control of east Jerusalem, that was not enough and they decided to go further, over the heads of some of the Palestinian leaders but in the interests of the Palestinian people. That creates a new situation and a new opportunity, if Israel will now have the imagination and generosity to grasp it and if Palestinians will come on board with the process.

I am not saying for a moment that this is easy, but imagine a situation where there are no physical barriers around the Palestinian territories; where that country can be integrated into the world economy and can trade its way to prosperity—an embourgeoisement of Palestine, if you will; where you will have a propertied class that will not tolerate lawlessness or freelance rocket launchers but will want to remain on good terms with its customers, most of whom will find themselves in Israel. As Milton Friedman said, there is nothing like trade to make people who do not get on get on.

I appreciate that taking down the barriers to get there is not an easy thing, but is it not worth the effort? Is it not worth at least considering the Palestinians as an entity capable of making their own decisions—whether they want confederation with Israel or with Jordan or whatever—and recognising them as a unit? Surely Abraham has buried enough of his dead out of his sight.