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Israel and Palestine: Gaza

My Lords, my noble friend knows that he is stepping on a very sensitive issue, but one that I think all of us in this House agree needs to be advanced and progressed. We have to find a way for the Palestinians to come together in a way that allows them to engage with the international community as well as to negotiate with Israel. I laid out two possibilities for that: to reunite under the flag of the Palestinian Authority and President Abbas in a way that created a united Government to whom the international community could talk and who met broadly the conditions of the quartet principles; or, as an alternative way of arriving at this point, to offer the potential prospect of elections. Both options are being discussed among the Palestinians. However, I cannot assure the House that it is as straightforward as my noble friend has suggested and that we shall instantly be able to sit down around a seminar table with the two Palestinian leaderships equally represented. That kind of statement would be highly inflammatory in this context. We have to understand that we need to work to arrive at a point where we can deal with the whole Palestinian community, but we cannot cut corners in a way which undermines these first limited political steps before the baby can walk, if you like.