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Middle East

My Lords, I can hardly think of a prescription more likely to cause devastation to any prospects of peace than the quartet breaking up. It represents one of the most serious, united international forces to try to ensure that some form of negotiation continues. Before anyone says, ““It all fails””, let me say that this antagonism has gone on for decades, across generations. With great respect, the idea that it will all be turned around by the quartet in a couple of years and without substantial work is unrealistic. I have a good deal more sympathy with the points made about the West Bank. I would not use the words that have been used, but it is true that some of the building in the West Bank, certainly in those parts east of Jerusalem that would make a contiguous and viable Palestinian state entirely impossible, is contrary to international law, as is the root of the war. I have said so from this Dispatch Box, to Israelis in the Israeli Government and to their diplomatic representatives, and I repeat it, if it needs to be repeated, here today. I do not know what is meant by ““something should be done to stop building east of Jerusalem””, short of detailed persuasion and key arguments being deployed about the future of peace and the two-state solution, to which we remain 100 per cent committed. I do not know what else is being contemplated. All the key forces, including the United States, must be brought to bear to secure a return to the road-map negotiations. Anyone, at the UN or elsewhere, who is not disposed to violence as the first tool for dealing with this, believes that those negotiations are the only route to securing a peaceful settlement.