Memo to Starmer: Stand up for the two-state solution

Independent

06-02-2025

With a smiling and evidently self-satisfied Israeli PM Netanyahu beside him, President Trump on Tuesday made an announcement on the future of Gaza and the West Bank, which, even by his standards, was nothing short of outrageous.
Driving a coach and horses through international law and norms, Trump's words amounted to planning the ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of some two million Palestinians from Gaza and called into question the sovereignty of the West Bank.
It was his remarks about the West Bank that were most troubling. Sovereignty in the West Bank is not up for debate. The West Bank, along with Gaza, are the Occupied Palestinian Territories. They belong to Palestinians.
Should the US move in to somehow 'own' the territory in Gaza and embark on a reconstruction programme (paid for presumably by Arab Gulf states) to turn Gaza into a ' Middle East Riviera,' and the West Bank be handed over to Israel, this would be the end of the state of Palestine and the long prized two-state solution.
Trump has managed to achieve a rare example of international consensus, with virtually all world powers condemning his harebrained idea. In the UK, David Lammy stated that 'we must see Palestinians live and prosper in their homelands in Gaza and the West Bank'.
Within the region, Saudi Arabia issued an 'unequivocal rejection of any infringement on the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, whether through Israeli settlement policies, the annexation of Palestinian lands, or attempts to displace the Palestinian people from their land'. Jordan and Egypt have also made clear that they will have no part in these plans, such as they are.
As for peace, Trump's announcement, should he follow through, will likely undermine talks on the second stage of the Gaza ceasefire. This fragile truce must hold. But where a shared basis for further ceasefire talks had been reached after months of negotiations, Trump's comments now risk throwing that into jeopardy. I fear for the hostages as much as I do for the Palestinian lives in that scenario.
The Palestinian Liberation Organisation are also highly suspicious of the US giving the green light to Israel's annexation of the West Bank, something that would doubtless lead to yet more conflict. And more generally, any hopes the US and Israel might have had for the great 'prize' of normalisation of Israeli relations with Riyadh will surely be ditched.
In all, this is a recipe for more conflict and while Netanyahu might be able to cling on to power it will do absolutely nothing for Israel's security. It will also give succour to bad actors and risk inflaming already tense inter-community relationships, including in our communities in the UK.
That is why we join with our allies in Europe, the Arab world and the Global South to do everything we can to dissuade Trump and his cohorts from enacting this crazy plan, using all peaceful and diplomatic means at our disposal.
A UN Security Council emergency meeting must be called immediately to make this clear. We must condemn in the strongest terms this flagrant attempt to ride roughshod over international law and forcibly displace a people from their homeland.
Enough war, destruction and death in the Middle East. We must preserve the ceasefire and give the Palestinians a political horizon for their own state that will restore hope in this blighted region. One thing that the UK government could do now is to join the 145 UN member states that have already recognised that state on 1967 lines, something that parliament called for a decade ago.
This government keeps talking about recognition 'at a time that is conducive to a peace process '. This statement may have made sense in the 1990s but it no longer fits. What we are now talking about is ensuring the survival of Palestine as a country. Recognition would send a clear message to the US administration and the Netanyahu regime that we will have no truck with land grabs of the sort that Trump's ideas imply.
Britain has a proud history, contributing to the establishment of the international rules-based order. What Trump is doing is anathema to that – a total contradiction of British values both at home and abroad.
So, my message to the British government and the international community is simple. If you say you believe in international law and a two-state solution, now is the time to act like it.