Israel and Gaza

Debate between Lord Hannay of Chiswick and Viscount Stansgate

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister accept some well-earned thanks for the tireless efforts that he and the Foreign Secretary have made in recent days? But I think he is saying now—perhaps he will confirm this—that, for any short-term pause or ceasefire to be sustainable, it needs to be anchored in a medium to long-term diplomatic negotiation about Israel and Palestine and their respective statehoods. Does he not think that the position he has spelled out this afternoon risks once again slipping back into a situation in which Israel, which we all recognise as a state, declines to recognise Palestine as a state, and the longer-term negotiations therefore get nowhere?

Would it not be better to think in terms of a situation in which all participants in the negotiation for a long-term solution—not just Israel and Palestine; it would certainly need to include all the Arab states around—recognise from the beginning that they are talking about two states and that the only point of the negotiations is to determine their mutual relationship in peaceful coexistence?