Palestine

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

My constituents have been very animated about the prospect of this debate. They know about conflict and peace processes and they know all about excusery, whataboutery and blame games when peace processes stall and initiatives fail. They even know about when institutions fall.

My constituents also know outrage when they see it—as there was this summer, with the scale of the violence visited on the people of Gaza by Operation Protective Edge. They know that violence makes no contribution to upholding anyone’s rights, and violence on the part of any armed group in the name of any Palestinian interest will not advance the cause of Palestinian rights or a Palestinian state. Indeed, much of that violence is aimed against the very process that would lead to a two-state solution. Let us remember that the people carrying out the violence—with whom, according to Netanyahu, those of us who support Palestinian statehood are aligning ourselves—are doing it to undermine the two-state solution. They are totally opposed to that concept, just as some people in Israel are.

I have said before that if we are serious about a two-state solution, we need to create more of a semblance around a two-state process. That is why moving towards recognising Palestinian statehood is so important; it is the single biggest thing that those of us outside, representing the international democratic interest, can do. Doing that is not about a little token PR win for Palestine or about one in the eye for Israel; it is about trying to create a more equal process and trying to say that international standards will and do apply—not just to Israel, but to Palestine. Any Palestinian state that is created or recognised will have to adhere to all the legal instruments to which they wish to bring Israel.

[Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful contribution. Does he not recognise from his own experience over recent decades that the heart of any successful negotiation is recognition of the legitimacy of the partner that someone is seeking to work with and legitimacy in the eyes of the international bodies? For that reason, we were right to back the vote on Palestinian recognition in October.

[Mark Durkan]

Absolutely, and our process shows that is true. It shows that if people are serious about negotiating a process, they have to recognise that it is not going to be a matter of them all converting others to their views. It will be a matter of convergence, so people, based on the integrity of their own position and knowing that their own interests and identity are going to be secured in the arrangements, can move forward to respect and accommodate each other.

In any situation of historic conflict, people need to recognise that they cannot be secure against each other; they can be truly secure only with each other. They cannot prosper against each other; they can truly prosper only with each other. That is why we need a two-state solution and why that needs strong international support. The issue is not about simply leaving things to the parties themselves and saying, “It is up to them to find enough will.” We cannot leave it to the parties themselves, any more than it was just left to the parties themselves in our process. International good will and interest has to find its standard. People also have to know that, whatever the outcome, the states created will fully adhere to human rights and conform to international law. They can hold each other to that and affirm those guarantees for all their citizens, whatever identities those citizens have.

Let us be very clear: Israel cannot go on believing that it can ignore all the world all the time and still buy arms and sell all the illegal settlement goods that it wants to sell. The public have got fed up; the international public are indignant at the failure of the diplomatic musings and all the excusery and ruses used to exercise a veto at the UN. That is why we have this petition and why people want to see us move forward on the basis of the vote that has already been held.