The UK’s Lord Tariq Ahmad. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Justin Lane) 
British Labour Lord Peter Hain has proposed in Parliament that it is time for the UK and the international community to go beyond the two-state solution to resolve the Middle East crisis.
One of the options could be a confederal state that offered security and self-determination for both Israelis and Palestinians, he told the House of Lords on Thursday, 29 February.
Hain asked Lord Tariq Ahmad, the minister for the Middle East, for his assessment of the viability of the two-state solution, given that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had recently rejected it.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Abir Sultan / ANP)
“Although many of us have backed a two-state solution for decades, how realistic is this when Prime Minister Netanyahu has firmly ruled it out, Gaza has been reduced to rubble, and Israel is expanding its illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, to over three-quarters of a million settlers?” Hain asked.
“What alternative is Israel offering if not permanent siege and oppressed status for Palestinians? Shouldn’t we be considering other options, perhaps a negotiated confederal state, with security and self-determination for both Israelis and Palestinians?”
Read more in Daily Maverick: Middle East crisis news hub
In his reply, Ahmad reiterated the Conservative Party government’s support for a two-state solution and said there was an important opportunity to secure that through current negotiations.
Earlier Ahmad had hinted in the House of Lords that the UK could be part of a peacekeeping force that offered “the security guarantees that Israel needs” and which also had the “confidence of the Palestinians”.
According to Jewish News, Ahmad referred to discussions currently taking place between the UK and the US, after the Conservative peer Lord Clarke had suggested the only way of breaking down the barriers to a peace deal between Israel and Hamas could eventually be “by some sort of enforcement mechanism being applied from outside”.
The UK’s Lord Tariq Ahmad. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Justin Lane)
The paper quoted Clarke as saying: “The difficulty is there seems to be not the slightest prospect of Hamas ever agreeing to accept the continued existence of Israel and not the slightest chance of a Netanyahu government agreeing to a two-state solution, which they would regard as giving Hamas a victory for its 7 October activities – and they probably have the majority of the Israeli population at this present time agreeing with them, at least on that.”
Clarke added there was a danger that if any deal was struck, “a peacekeeping mission would need to be established to try to ensure that it does not all collapse and go back into calamity in a very short time.”
Ahmad said “there are details that are currently under way with regard to securing what is necessary for Israel and providing it with security guarantees.”
He added: “That will constitute a presence beyond the Israeli army that is currently in Gaza that has the confidence of the Palestinians within Gaza, but, importantly, has the security guarantees that Israel needs. We are working on that.”
“On the specifics, of course, we are working hand-in-glove with the Americans.” DM