‘THAT this House believes that the Government should recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel, as a contribution to securing a negotiated two state solution.’
This was the motion that was carried by the House of Commons on Monday night by 274-12, with all of the Tory ministers who were present abstaining.
The House of Commons, the governing institution of the UK, has now recognised Palestine and a campaign must be immediately begun to force the Tory government to carry out the resolution and open up a British embassy in the Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem – after the Queen receives Manual Hassassian’s credentials as ambassador and a Palestinian embassy is opened in London.
The vote in the House of Commons follows on from the extraordinary explosion of support amongst workers and youth in the UK for the embattled people of Gaza during the recent Israeli imposed 50 day blitzkrieg.
With this homicidal assault Israel descended into barbarism, as far as UK workers are concerned who then made it very clear to their MPs what they wanted.
The MPs who deliverd the message were hardly Bolsheviks. Mover of the resolution Grahame Morris said: ‘As a friend of Palestine, I earnestly believe that recognition of the state of Palestine is the only way forward, and that it should be the choice of all true friends of Israel.’
He added: ‘Let us make no mistake about this: to make our recognition of Palestine dependent on Israel’s agreement would be to grant Israel a veto over Palestinian self-determination. . .
Recognition is not an Israeli bargaining chip; it is a Palestinian right. It is one that has to form the basis of any serious negotiations.’
Sir Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con) supporting the motion, revealed the crisis that the Gaza massacres plunged major supporters of Israel into.
He said: ‘I was a friend of Israel long before I became a Tory. My wife’s family were instrumental in the creation of the Jewish state. Indeed, some of them were with Weizmann at the Paris conference.
The holocaust had a deep impact on me as a young man growing up in the aftermath of the Second World War, particularly when I paid a visit as a schoolboy to Belsen.’
He added: ‘The annexation of the 950 acres of the West Bank just a few months ago has outraged me more than anything else in my political life, mainly because it makes me look a fool, and that is something that I resent.’ He concluded: ‘Under normal circumstances, I would oppose the motion tonight; but such is my anger over Israel’s behaviour in recent months that I will not oppose the motion. I have to say to the Government of Israel that if they are losing people like me, they will be losing a lot of people.’
Sir Gerald Kaufman, Labour MP, alluded to the difficulties of the situation. He said it was ‘a fantasy that the Jews were reunited when the state of Israel was created and that the Palestinians were split, and we have just heard again about the wickedness of Hamas. . . But the Israelis were divided into three warring factions at that time: the Haganah, representing the official Jewish agency; the terrorist organisation Irgun Zvai Leumi; and the terrorist Stern gang. Israel nearly broke out into civil war immediately after it was founded because Irgun insisted on having its own army in an independent state. So the idea that Israel was somehow born in a moment of paradise and that all that surrounds the Palestinians is stress and damage is a fantasy’.
The carrying of the motion by the UK legislature is undoubtedly decisive, but it must be acted on by the working class and its trade unions.
The TUC and the trade unions must organise a national campaign of demonstrations and political strikes demanding that the Tory-led coalition must implement the House of Commons resolution at once.
The trade unions must also tell Labour that they will not get another penny from them for their general election campaign unless they pledge, and put in their election programme, that they will immediately recognise Palestine and end the occupation if they become the goverment in a few months time.
As well, the TUC must organise a worldwide boycott of Israel and keep it clamped on until the occupation is ended, the state established with East Jerusalem as its capital and with all Palestinian refugees having the right to return. Now is the time when this must be done!
