As the tragic conflict in Israel and Palestine enters its thirteenth month, the Labour government is rightly focused on our shared desire to end the war, bring the Israeli hostages home and ensure a surge of aid into Gaza.
But it is vital that Britain also turns its attention to when the conflict ends and how the international community can support a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike. As I argue in a forthcoming Labour Friends of Israel paper, its focus should be on a strategy to marginalise the enemies of peace.
The atrocities committed by Hamas on 7 October – and the conflict it deliberately provoked as a result – underlines why, as David Lammy has suggested, Hamas can have no future role in Gaza.
Similarly, the Prime Minister has been steadfast in standing with Israel in the face of the aggression perpetrated by Iran – which funds Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups with up to $100 million a year – and other members of its “axis of resistance”, principally Hezbollah and the Houthis. Together, they have wrought violence and bloodshed across the Middle East and, by their common desire to destroy Israel, acted as a major barrier to a two-state solution.
The government has been ramping up sanctions on the Iranian regime’s ideological vanguard, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is responsible for the brutal suppression of dissent at home, as well as Tehran’s nefarious regional and international activities (such as the supply of ballistic missiles for Putin’s war in Ukraine). In line with our manifesto commitment, the government should institute a ban on the IRGC as swiftly as possible.
But, unfortunately, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, which is sustained in office by the far right, is too divided and extreme to think much beyond tacking the very real threat posed by Tehran and its murderous proxies.
Britain and our allies in the US and Europe must fill this void.
A course of action
First, the government is right to assert our belief that a negotiated two-state solution offers the only long-term solution to the conflict.
It should also begin promoting more immediate, practical steps to breathe new life into the Palestinian Authority.
These would include redoubling our efforts to support Palestinian statehood, with a new partnership agreement between Britain and a reformed and strengthened Palestinian Authority; a gradual expansion of PA territory in the West Bank; and encouraging Israel to take tough action against extremist settler violence, remove illegal settlement outposts, and cease settlement expansion outside major blocs along the 1967 Green Line.
It’s also vital that, as a donor to the PA, Britain pushes the case for far-reaching reform. We need to incentivise measures to the strengthen the independence of the judiciary and press freedom, eliminate corruption and shake-up the security forces.
At the same time, officially sanctioned incitement by the PA must be addressed: Britain should lead a drive by donors to unequivocally demand that PA schools stop the promotion of antisemitism and “martyrdom” and the PA’s appalling practice of paying salaries to convicted terrorists must stop.
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Second, a majority of the Israeli public could be persuaded to accept these steps if they are presented as part of an agenda to permanently exclude Hamas, and if they come in parallel with a second step: a normalisation deal with Saudi Arabia building on the Abraham Accords process.
Iran and its allies are determined to stop this process: the government should underline its commitment by appointing a special envoy for the Abraham Accords with the status of an ambassador. Britain must be clear, too, that Arab-Israeli normalisation must have clear benefits for the Palestinians baked in.
The third element is a plan for the long-suffering Gaza Strip – one which addresses not just the impact of the present terrible war but decades of conflict, tight Egyptian and Israeli restrictions, and, most damagingly of all, Hamas rule. Britain should support the establishment of an interim governing authority led by Palestinians with international support.
Beyond this, despite its many flaws, only the PA has the legitimacy and authority to assume responsibility for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Gaza. A lawless, failed state in Gaza cannot attend to the needs of the people of Gaza or provide the security the people of Israel have the right to expect.
Throughout this year, LFI has urged a Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Gaza. Britain should work now with our international partners to convene a post-war reconstruction summit.
Creating a lasting peace
A fourth element, the potential for which is inextricably tied to the other three, is a massive investment in promoting a culture of peace.
It’s now time to begin building the civic society foundations for a future peace process by working to establish an International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace. Modelled on the International Fund for Ireland, which was established in the darkest days of the Troubles in the mid-1980s, it is credited with laying the ground for the Good Friday Agreement.
In the case of Ireland, investments in peacebuilding projects – which ranged from sports clubs for children and young people to environmental, cultural, economic and interfaith groups – equated to $44 per person per year. The equivalent sum received by projects in Israel-Palestine, which, academic studies show, promote conflict-resolution values such as mutual trust, reconciliation and coexistence, is a mere $2 spent on Israel-Palestine.
The case for an International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace has been recognised by the Prime Minister, Chancellor and Foreign Secretary.
Given Labour’s record in Northern Ireland, the government is uniquely placed to lead the drive to establish an International Fund. And, given the backing it receives from Israelis and Palestinians alike, it offers a glimmer of hope for the “day after” the conflict ends and a concrete way that Britain can help to marginalise the enemies of peace.
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