Palestine: Road Map to Peace Debate
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Steve McCabe
Main Page: Steve McCabe (Labour - Birmingham, Selly Oak)Department Debates - View all Steve McCabe's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Palestine: Road Map to Peace
Steve McCabe Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Tahir Ali)—my neighbour—on securing the debate. I am the chair of Labour Friends of Israel, so I will be a lone voice here. Let me be straightforward. The debate sounds less like seeking conditions that might help create peace, and more like setting conditions as a prerequisite for peace. That is what is wrong with it.
We are told we must recognise Palestine, but what Palestine? Is it the bit controlled by the Palestinian Authority, or the bit under military occupation by Hamas? What kind of state would we be recognising, given its current condition? Why is it impossible, in a debate like this, to recognise that there is a new coalition Government in Israel? Why is it impossible to look at the arguments about the “economy for security” plan that was announced recently? Why are the Abraham accords automatically dismissed?
I listened to what my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green, and others said about co-existence, and I agree. I hope that means that they are also supporting the Alliance for Middle East Peace plan for an international peace fund to bring those opposing people together, as we did successfully in Northern Ireland. I hope we will be united in saying to the Government that Britain should seek to take up one of the places on the international body supervising that fund.
I hear people talk about recognition and sanctions; what I want to know is, when people are chanting, “From the river to the sea”, what do they think that actually means? We all know that it actually means the dismemberment of Israel—Israel not having a right to exist. No one can back that and a two-state solution simultaneously.
I genuinely want a two-state solution. I genuinely want peace. However, I also want recognition that the state of play is that Hamas is supported and financed by the Iranian revolutionary guard, and that its objective is the destruction of the state of Israel. We have to bear that in mind.