Palestine Statehood (Recognition) Bill [HL]

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Friday 14th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, on getting her Bill to this stage. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, for signalling opposition to the Balfour Declaration, on the basis of which the State of Israel was founded.

We learned recently that the Americans have been talking directly to Hamas. I wonder: has the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, managed to make contact with Hamas and get its take on the two-state solution? Has she spoken to Khalil al-Hayya, who only a few weeks ago described the 7 October massacre as

“a source of pride for our people … and it will be passed down from generation to generation”?

Has she spoken to Ghazi Hamad, who said this barely a fortnight after the massacre:

“We will repeat the October 7 attack time and again until Israel is annihilated … We must remove that country, because it constitutes a security, military and political catastrophe … and must be finished”?


It is clear where Hamas stands on a two-state solution: it rejects it, as we have already heard. Indeed, its barbaric actions on 7 October and statements since provide incontrovertible proof, if any were needed, that it has not only vetoed that solution in effect but set back the cause and the realistic possibility of Palestinian nationhood for generations, if not for ever.

I finish with a simple question: how could anyone not want peace for the people of Gaza, the West Bank and Israel? Hamas answered that question on 7 October 2023. It does not want peace, and it most certainly does not want a two-state solution. However much we would like to do so, we cannot ignore the fact that it is Hamas that has, in word and deed, done more than anyone to destroy the two-state premise on which this Bill is based.