The Scot whose 67 words have helped shape a century of Middle East history
sides of a divided city. Last week, I travelled to the Palestinian Territories.
In Bethlehem, I visited Palestinian refugee camps and met children who are now the third generation of displaced refugees in their families.
The sounds of security forces operations in the neighbouring camp could be clearly heard, while used tear gas canisters lay discarded at my feet and the separation wall that today divides Bethlehem loomed behind me.
It was a painful reminder of how distant and difficult the prospect of a peaceful resolution remains, a century after the Balfour Declaration.
For half of that century, it has been judged that this conflict will only be ultimately resolved by both sides engaging in a negotiated peace process towards a two-state solution.
Yet the tragedy is that today, there no peace and no process. And in this environment, despair dominates as hope struggles to survive.
While the Palestinians agreed a reconciliation last month aimed at ending the feud between Fatah and Hamas that has divided the nation between the West Bank and Gaza for a decade, they are still struggling to find a way to implement this agreement.
Yet Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has little prospect of offering his people meaningful negotiations with Israel while the majority of the Israeli Cabinet have publicly stated that they will never agree to a Palestinian state.
Unprecedented rates of Israeli settlement building on Palestinian land are not only changing the facts on the ground but are undermining the very idea of a two-state solution.
This year alone, 6000 housing units have been approved for construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank by the Israeli government, with 1292 settler units approved last month.
Earlier this year, the Knesset voted to let Israel seize land owned by Palestinians in the West Bank and grant the properties to Israeli settlers. Likud MP Benny Begin, the son of former PM Menachem, called it “the robbery bill”.
With each month, the dynamic drifts further away from two states and closer to the situation former US secretary of state John Kerry warned of – “one state and perpetual occupation”.
A one-state solution is no solution at all. It would end the dream of national self-determination for the Jewish people anticipated by Balfour and would involve almost three million Palestinians in the West Bank being ruled perpetually by a minority, with different laws and fewer rights.
Israeli prime ministers Rabin, Barak and Olmert all called that apartheid.
It would mean either the demise of Israel as a Jewish state or the demise of Israel as a democracy.
To rescue the two-state solution, the recognition of Israel must now be balanced with the recognition of Palestine as part of continuing steps to achieve a comprehensive negotiated agreement.
Amidst the disappointment and despair I witnessed last week in Bethlehem, recognition would strengthen moderate Palestinian opinion, encourage the Palestinians to reject violence and take the path of politics, and rekindle hope of a credible route to a viable Palestinian state and a secure Israel achieved by negotiations.
All former heads of Israeli security agencies Mossad and Shin Bet support the establishment of a Palestinian state as fundamental to finding an alternative to continued conflict.
Of the 193 UN member states, 137 already recognise Palestine. Last year, the Vatican and Sweden joined that list.
In 2011 and 2012, as Labour’s shadow foreign secretary, I called on foreign secretary William Hague to commit Britain to supporting the Palestinians’ bid for recognition at the UN. I made clear that our support for that principle was not a way to bypass the need for negotiations but a contribution to getting them re-started.
In 2014, I led on this issue for Labour in Parliament and we voted to urge the Tory-led government to “recognise the State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel” as a contribution to securing a negotiated two-state solution.
My conversations in the West Bank last week confirmed that since then, the fear and frustration of the Palestinians has only deepened. The UK’s involvement in this Palestinian tragedy is beyond dispute.
The centenary of the Balfour Declaration is the historic moment to right a historic wrong. A century on, Balfour’s promise that nothing should be done to prejudice the religious and civil rights of Palestine’s “existing nonJewish communities” remains unkept.
Britain should therefore mark this moment by more than a commemorative dinner. We should mark this moment by recognising the State of Palestine.
The Balfour Declaration was famously summarised by the writer Arthur Koestler as “One nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third.”
For Britain a century on, statehood for the Palestinians is not a gift to be given but a right to be recognised. ● Douglas Alexander is a senior fellow at Harvard University and former MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South and shadow foreign secretary.