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International Affairs

I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me, but I want to press on, as I know that other hon. Members want to speak. It has been a fast-moving and dramatic year. There have been genuine prospects for peace in the middle east since the Israeli elections; indeed, I secured an Adjournment debate on that subject a few weeks ago. Despite the election of Hamas, there were encouraging signs that a two-state solution was moving closer. Mahmoud Abbas remained as Palestinian President and attempted to implement a civilising and moderate policy for the Palestinians. At the end of May, for example, he proposed an 18-point peace plan based on positions agreed by Palestinians in Israeli jails. That plan implicitly recognised Israel and supported the establishment of a Palestinian state in territory occupied by Israel in 1967. Abbas was prepared to put that 18-point plan to the Palestinian people in a referendum, and Hamas signed it at the end of May. Let us be clear that the document is not a miraculous panacea for either side. Although there is implicit recognition of Israel, it is arguably so implicit as to be almost imperceptible. That point was stressed by two of the signatories, Abdel Kheleq Natsche from Hamas, and Bassam al-Sa’adi from Islamic Jihad, who declared:"““We scorn the attempts to attach non-existent content to the document and therefore we emphasise that it does not contain any declaration or hint of recognition of the occupation state and does not contain any call for this””." In other ways, the document falls short of what the UK and other members of the international community want—an end to terrorism and a commitment to honouring existing international agreements. Although it is far from perfect, in terms of perception it represents a significant and symbolic move towards an acceptance, albeit implicit rather than explicit, of a peaceful two-state solution based on bilateral negotiation and future co-operation.