Peace cannot be kept by force: It can only be kept by understanding.
(Albert Einstein)
The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is presented as a key example of an intractable conflict, where there is continual, tragic loss of life and political solutions prove illusive. Understandably, many Liberal Democrats have strong feelings about the continuous loss of life and injustices that stem from this conflict. The longer this conflict continues, the greater the risk becomes that we feel tempted to take positions that mirror the parties to the conflict.
Readers will note the existence of other groups within the Lib Dems concerned with the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. It would be reasonable to ask, how are Liberal Democrats for Peace in the Middle East unique compared to them? Our position can be summed up as looking for solutions and not taking sides.
We believe it is completely reasonable to care about the security and wellbeing of both Israelis and Palestinians equally. We believe strongly in taking an approach to this debate that leaves out partisan bias. Constructive, clear minded and reasonable debate about this conflict and possible remedies for it are urgently needed. It is our position that discussions based on accusations and declaring the moral high ground for one side over another, have been to the detriment of finding workable solutions and promoting meaningful debate. After all a sustainable solution will require the consent of people on both sides of the conflict.
So, who are we as a group? Some of us have direct personal links to the conflict. Others are activists with an interest in it who feel strongly about being as constructive and non-partisan as possible in finding solutions. Personally, I didn’t give the conflict a huge amount of thought beyond the next person until I met both an Israeli and a Palestinian at a Model United Nations Conference. Between the debates I got to know a little more about them personally. I felt privileged to meet them in person, and we kept in contact via social media. Through this medium, as the conflict advanced, I began to appreciate the toll the conflict took on both of these articulate and friendly people I have met. I felt sorry that these reasonable individuals could be trapped in a conflict that seemed to become more cruel and absurd every day. I felt they both deserved better hopes for the future.
Liberal Democrats for Peace in the Middle East asks humbly for your support for us to become an Associated Group within the Liberal Democrats. We would like to present to you a unique opportunity to move the conversation about the Israel-Palestine Conflict into a place where there is less rancour and more of a space for presenting new ideas for solutions. In time we hope that we can build good relationships with Liberal Democrats Friends of Israel (LDFI) and Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine (LDFP), in the hopes of creating better organisations between the respective groups. To find out more please visit https://ldfpme.org.uk/ .
* Zachary Barker is a Lib Dem activist in Bristol.
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18 Comments
Well-intentioned, I’m sure, but the reality is that the Israeli/Palestinian dispute is a ‘zero sum game’ where one side has all the power and therefore no incentive to make concessions to achieve a settlement. Unless concerted international pressure is applied against Israel, as was done against apartheid South Africa, then the Palestinians will gradually be squeezed out of the land they currently live on as Israel gradually confiscates land and expands settlements. If we believe that Israel’s actions are unacceptable, as I do, we have to take sides and campaign for international trade and sporting boycotts against Israel.
The best of luck. You’re going to need it!
Brad, no, the Palestine/Israel conflict is not a ‘zero sum game’. To suggest it might be is to misunderstand the realities of the area
Israel & Israelis have every incentive to find a solution that guarantees them security & peace even if it means giving up control of Occupied Palestine. many Israelis are willing to accept this but the real problem is a lack of trust in Palestinians & especially in the Palestinian political leadership. Similarly, 73 years after the Nakba & Jordanian/Egyptian Occupation and 54 years after that occupation was replaced by Israeli Occupation, Palestinians have little trust in Israel or their fellow Arab nations.
A way find has to be found that will build that trust between them and to overcome the problem that, despite living next to each other, Israelis & Palestinians rarely meet in circumstances that allows them to talk and understand each other, to learn to accept each other not as enemies but as fellow inhabitants of the “Land between the River & the Sea”.
This is what we are setting up LDfPME to to do. Not to pontificate from the safety of 3000 miles to either Israelis or Palestinians on what to do but the help them try to find a mutually acceptable solution but to support & encourage those on both sides who are already working to find ways to promote cooperation, mutual understanding and conflict resolution between the residents of the area. We also want to help bring their activities to the notice of people here in the UK, specifically in the party.
@Lean Duveen
I’m afraid I disagree with both your assessment of the situation in the Middle East and your assessment of my level of understanding. I used to believe that a 2 state solution was a possible way to achieve a just peace but Israel has now created ‘facts on the ground’ which I do not believe it will be willing to undo. Israel may be willing to allow statehood for the current Palestinian administered territories but no Palestinian Leader could accept an outcome that did not also address the grievances of the many Palestinian refugees who believe their parents or grandparents were forced from their land and wish to return.
Good initiative. I have long pondered how best Liberal Friends of Palestine and Liberal Friends of Israel could combine to offer a joint LibDem position on this seemingly intractable conflict. Perhaps this new group will be the conduit to allow that to develop,
Leon Duveen is right that it is not a “zero sum game”. It should be respect for the rights of each party in international law. It is only when recognition of each side’s rights by the other is accepted as the starting point that meaningful negotiations can begin. Until then, the physically stronger party will continue to seek to extract concessions from the physically weaker party. That causes resentment and far, far worse.
In answer to Joe Bourke, I am a former chair of Lib Dem Friends of Palestine and know that LDFP accept this principle. I hope that Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel do as well – but they must speak for themselves.
@Brad Barrows
Well I thank you for giving credit for our intentions. Clearly practically we have quite a journey ahead of us.
With regard to your comments, yes we must recognise the importance of what happens on the ground. We cannot escape “facts on the ground”.
However, it is important to recognise the importance of not just talking about this conflict in terms of governments and sending messages to them. It is of paramount importance to consider the feelings of ordinary Israelis and Palestinians. Many Israeli citizens may have feelings that are similar to your own. I am sure all of us, being part of an opposition party, can recognise that the views of citizens and the views of governments can diverge.
That is why we feel it is important to have a space where discussion stays as non-partisan as possible to explore new avenues for either conflict solutions, confidence building measures or unexplored areas of discussion.
We have heard accusations and counter accusations for years to little constructive benefit.
So why not try something new?
I tend to agree with Brad Barrows.
ETHNIC CLEANSING is defined as the mass expulsion or killing of members of one ethnic group or religion in an area by members of another.
If anyone does not think that this describes the situation between the Palestinians on the one hand and the Israelis on the other, I would dearly like to hear why they think that this is not the case. There is unlikely to be peace between Palestinians and Israelis until ethnic cleansing is stopped and reversed. I note that extreme settler-colonial Zionists are and have been talking of expelling all Palestinians “home” to Jordan, (which they call “Palestine” because the population is ethnically similar to the semitic Palestinians). What next?
The aims of the LDfPME are very similar to ours in the Lib Dem Friends of Palestine, and I think we would all agree that this is not a zero-sum game; both sides will benefit from an end to hostility and the creation of a Palestinian state.
The difficulty with the even-handed, no-blame approach LDfPME seem to be proposing is that Israel is the most powerful actor in the conflict, and successive right-wing Israeli governments have found that prolonging the conflict has allowed continuation of the greater Israel project; annexation of the West Bank. The Israeli people would no doubt benefit from an end to the conflict, and have no real need to colonise the rest of Palestine (apart from realising the dream of its founders in 1948), but all right-wing governments are sustained by creating fear among the population, in order to make it seem that a less forceful leadership would be a mistake.
So the task certainly involves co-opting support for peace from people around the world – especially Jews – but it also means getting between the Israeli government and the Israeli people, to break the cycle. Currently, Israelis are encouraged to think of Palestinians as inferior and dangerous, an ideal mindset for sustaining right-wing government. It may be wrong to try to achieve that by vilifying Israelis (to which they respond by creating defensive barriers to progressive ideas), but if the alternative is that they ignore criticism, the peace process will remain stalled.
To add to what John McHugo said, the motion before Conference in September in the names of Layla Moran and Alistair Carmichael followed consultation with both Lib Dem Friends of Israel and Lib Dem Friends of Palestine and shows considerable common ground. https://www.dropbox.com/s/2itikgcils68h7d/Aut21_Conference_Agenda_Palestine%20Motion.pdf?dl=0
What the motion doesn’t do is address the need for pressure on the Israeli government to heed international law and stop its brutal occupation. Britain is complicit in the occupation because it allows trade with settlements, it allows the supply of the military and other equipment that is used to enforce the occupation, and it allows illegal settlers visa-free travel to the UK but not their Palestinian neighbours. A change of policy on these matters by the UK and other countries would, I believe, help liberal Israelis ( of whom there are many – but nowhere near a majority) to convince their fellow citizens that things must change.
I have just signed up to join.
My personal view of the Israel / Palestine conflict is set out on my website at the link below.
https://www.mohammedamin.com/Middle-East/Personal-view-of-the-Middle-East-conflict.html
If I may I’d like to comment on two other contributions;
Andy Daer says “the Israeli people have no real need to colonise the rest of Palestine” Bear in mind that one cannot “settle” and already settled land without some degree of ethnic cleansing.
The Christian Zionist, (mainly US), backers of settler-colonialism, do need the “colonisation” of most of Zion or Greater Israel in order to meet the prophesized conditions for the return of Jesus Christ.
What is to become of the fertile land and water resources etc that the “colonisers” have illegally-settled and substantally ethnically-cleansed of Palestinians, so far?
I would also question the use of the word “conflict” to describe a process of ethnic cleansing, The 1948 “War of Independence ” also involved the ethnic cleansing of about 3/4 million Palestinians.
John Kelly: also refers to the “brutal occupation” of Palestine, when what is clearly taking place is displacement of Palestinians to make way for Jewish “settlers” in a blatant process of ethnic cleansing.
It is impossible not to sympathise with Zachary Barker’s plea. We all long for a durable fair-minded solution. Fair-mindedness has been at the heart of international thinking which over the past century or so has hardened into recognised obligatory principles and law, for example: (i) not state may formally or informally annex captured territory; (ii) no state may lawfully apply a racially discriminatory legal or administrative system within the territory it controls; (iii) no state may thwart the the self-determination of a people within their acknowledged territory – these must go equally for both parties. Then there are the formalised laws of occupation: the Hague Regulations of 1907 and the Fourth Geneva Convention of August 1949. The former has the status of customary law, obligatory in all circumstances, and virtually every UN member state is party to the latter. Very few people actually read them but they make very sobering reading because they show how much they have been violated since 1967. Then there is the body of international human rights law, including refugee rights. Until or unless all parties are willing to acknowledge and apply such international rules as the basic groundwork on which discussion may take place, there is no chance of a fruitful discussion. That was the great flaw of Oslo 1993 – ducking mention of the applicability of relevant international law. Lets pledge ourselves to the primacy of international law, no ifs nor buts. It should be the least we Liberal Democrats aspire to.
I’m generally supportive of the conference motion, but wonder why it reaffirms the party’s commitment to a two-state solution. I agree with the many well-informed commentators who think that idea as dead as the Bantustan concept once offered by apartheid South Africa. We should at least keep our policy position open to the long-term ideal of one state shared by Israelis and Palestinians.
If anyone on this thread agrees, could we put together an amendment to the Conference motion?
As a member of the Liberal Democrats, who makes a frequent contribution, many years in fact, on Liberal Democrat Voice, i would like to support and add to this piece of Zachary.
i have been a member involved with Liberal Democrats For peace In The Middle East, on and off, since its start on Facebook a good while back. What has been a desire since the beginning, to get Associated Group formation, is now going ahead.
It was at the start, Leon who began it , not least with a terrific piece on this site. Now that it is going in the direction many of us have been enthusiastic about, can I bring my enthusiasm and involvement on Liberal Democrat Voice too, here, to the fore, and encourage members of the party to join this excellent growing organisation, as it can now be.
It does favour a two state solution. That is clear in the aim of it. Talk of one state shared is not what realists or idealists want, in the region or here.
If you believe in two state solution politics, for that region,in keeping with the Liberal Democratic quality of understanding both sides of an issue, Liberal Democrats For Peace In The Middle East is up your street and a path ahead we all should take…
I agree with Brad Barrows 12th Aug ’21 –
For even handed talks to achieve anything there must be an incentive for both sides to gain/concede something
Regarding, for instance, in the ongoing ‘confiscation’ of Palestinian owned land/homes could the LDfPME members show any examples of Palestinians obtaining a ‘win’ over Israeli groups? Successive Israeli governments have just taken more and more rights. land and homes from Palestinians and have faced no real sanctions from the international community or businesses so why should the government want to change?.
In the Evyatar outpost (illegal even under Israeli law) the settlers’ homes remain under military protection and, instead of being prosecuted, the settlers were promised by Naftali Bennett, that “The state would ascertain whether the land can be classified as “state land” and if yes (the conclusion the state is expected to arrive at) it would be handed over to the settlers even though it lies in Palestinian villages”.
Contrast the effect achieved by years of talks with the near panic, in Israel and in the USA, when Ben & Jerry’s announced it would no longer sell its products in Jewish settlements built on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem..
Such international action, by countries and businesses, is the only way that the dominant power will be willing to talk and grant any meaningful concessions..In the ‘even handed’ talks proposed by LDfPME the above scenario should be the starting point.
If it can take the view of the civilian on both sides and treat all as equal it will have my support. Humanitarian considerations should be paramount. If any party does not respect them it should campaign for sanctions such as arms embargos and consumer boycotts.
There are approximately 7 million Jewish Israelis & about a similar number of Palestinians living in Occupied Palestine, Israel (as Israelis) and in refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria & Jordan.
Neither people is going to disappear, neither people will give up their right to a national homeland in this small sliver of land and neither has the right to deny the other of that right.
From my own experiences of living in Israel & serving in the IDF, one of the biggest issues is that for many from both sides their only interaction through violence. There is little attempt at an official level to get Israelis & Palestinians to met each other, to talk with each other, to understand each other, to realise that those on the other side are not demons but people just like them.
Until we can get more from both sides to work together, to start seeing each other as possible colleagues in building peace, be it two separated states, one bi-national state or (as I was reading yesterday) two parallel states where nationals from each side have limited rights to live in the other’s state, what hope is there changing the dynamic?