US can’t take the lead on recognising Palestine

Palestinian protest against planned land seizure by Israeli settlers in the village of Wadi Foukin, near Bethlehem, 26 September 2014. Photograph: Sipa USA/Rex Features

 Tuesday 30 September 2014

Benedict Birnberg (Letters, 29 September) questions my assertion that the US administration’s hands are tied by Congress on the recognition of Palestine. I’m sure his constitutional arguments are correct. President Truman did not wait for Congress before recognising Israel in 1948 – though he waited a few hours and was pipped at the post by Stalin. What I had in mind was the political constraints. US public and congressional opinion is slowly coming to realise that it is not sensible to look at the Palestine problem exclusively through the eyes of the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. But recognition of Palestine by President Obama now would come as a shock, and shocks are usually to be avoided in international relations. British public and parliamentary opinion is more balanced and we are in a position to take a lead.

In my article (27 September), the suggestion that we should recognise the Palestine state was in the context of the problem of the so-called Islamic State (Isis). But the Palestine problem is a separate one, to be considered on its merits. Some regard it as central to our relationship with the Arab world; President Sisi of Egypt, for example, told the UN general assembly last week that it remains a top priority for Egypt. Birnberg refers to one strong reason for recognising Palestine now: the concordat between Fatah and Hamas, which offers the possibility of a government speaking for all Palestine and speaking the language of peace. There is another reason: the appeal by President Abbas of Palestine to the general assembly for a firm timetable now to end the occupation, which has lasted 47 years. Forty-seven years ago we and the world signed up to security council resolution 242, which opens by emphasising “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” and goes on to say that the UN charter principles require Israeli withdrawal. In the words of the psalmist, “How long, O Lord?”
Oliver Miles
Oxford

• Mr Birnberg’s demand for a Palestinian state is surprising because the Palestinians do not need to seek the UN’s or the world’s support for such a state. They can have a state tomorrow. All they need to do is to declare genuine peace with Israel and they will have independence and a state. But this they are unwilling to do. Indeed, they were offered a state  n 1937 (Peel commission “two-states” solution) and in 1947 (UN partition plan) and in 1967 (when Israel captured the territories – after a third war for survival and, incidentally, long before there was an occupation or settlements - and offered to return them in exchange for peace) and in 2000 at Camp David, but they always rejected the offers. Why? Because the Palestinians are not seeking a state alongside Israel but one in place of Israel. If the price of statehood is peace with Israel, they will not accept it. All the conflagrations and wars in the region must be understood in this context. The Palestinians’ latest tactic is to seek sympathy and support for a state, while reserving for themselves the right to belligerence and aggression against the tiny Jewish state. It is an unacceptable stance which, I suspect, has not been fully understood by many. The Palestinians have a right to a state and independence (as Israel gladly acknowledges), but only provided they are willing to live in genuine peace with their neighbour. 
Joshua Rowe
Manchester