UK: Reaction to a letter to The Times by senior politicians calling for the recognition of a Palestinian state

Mark Pickles, writer and artist:

Here is a piece in reaction to a letter to The Times by over 20 senior and deluded British politicians calling for the immediate recognition of a Palestinian state, oblivious to the realities on the ground:

Yesterday, 20th January 2020, twenty-odd British political worthies of the left and right –and of both chambers – wrote a short letter to The Times titled, “The Time is Right to Recognise Palestine”. (I’ve put a screenshot of the letter after the footnote references.) The “time is now”, we are told, to “best serve the cause of peace”. We are told that “Israel’s actions are pushing a two-state solution beyond reach”.

The signatories of the letter finish by telling us they want “equal rights for peoples in two states”.

The two-state solution is beyond reach – through no fault of Israel – regardless of the fact that two-states remains the official foreign-policy position of the UK Government. The two-state solution was emphasised by Boris Johnson when he was Foreign Secretary, who on the centenary of the Balfour Declaration in 2017 wrote his “vision for Middle East peace”. Prime Minister Johnson’s piece is still on gov.uk, where you will see that it is not visionary at all, but the same old British broken-record stuck on “two-state solution”, oblivious to the realities. [i]

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