OF CABBAGES AND KINGS | Could UK, France Push On Palestine Lead To A swift 2-state Solution? | Farrukh Dhondy

“O Bachchoo loss in life is no surprise

As it goes on and expectation dies

Confront it without fantasies like ‘fate’

Or ‘destiny’ -- these are consoling lies!”

From Rubaiyat of Kundum Maal, by Bachchoo

The UK Labour Party has forced Prime Minister Keir Starmer to advance his and the British government’s stance on a Palestinian state. He has now joined France’s President Emmanuel Macron in announcing that he will recognise a Palestinian state in September this year “unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, reaches a ceasefire, makes clear there will be no further annexation of land by Zionist settlers in the West Bank, and commits to a long-term peace process that delivers a two-state solution”.

Of course, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu retaliated against these announcements, arguing that they support or sanction the “terrorist” actions of Hamas. US President Donald Trump has so far expressed absolute support for Mr Netanyahu’s position, but he hasn’t stooped to criticise Mr Macron and Sir Keir Starmer.

But… one never knows with the Orange one -- he has said Gaza should be the Riviera of the Middle East, presumably with some Trump hotels and golf courses to attract the international rich.

What can Mr Macron and Mr Starmer hope to achieve with these announcements? Will other nations join them? Even if every member of the United Nations, bar the United States, supports the establishment of a Palestinian state and ultimately a two-state solution, without US support they will have no means of bringing it about.

There is as yet no clarity about what territory Mr Macron, Mr Starmer and whoever joins them will “recognise” as Palestine. The speculation is that this state will include Gaza and the territory of the West Bank as it was before the 1967 war and will require the evacuation of the Israeli settlers who have, through force and ethnic cleansing, acquired land in Palestine’s West Bank. Hope springs eternal.

Of course, even the slightest move towards such, or any other, solution will mean the proscription of Hamas and an assurance from any elected Palestinian organisation that all antagonism towards the existence of Israel should cease.

Again, does hope await eternity?

In the months since the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on the Israelis, killing hundreds and taking hostages, it seemed clear that this act of terror was a strategic miscalculation. Hamas’ leadership could have had no doubts about the retaliation that would follow. They must have known that Bibi Netanyahu’s extreme Zionist government would wreak incalculable vengeance on the Palestinians in Gaza, perhaps murdering hundreds. Thousands at the last count.

They may not have foreseen such genocide, but probably calculated that any Israeli retaliatory action would be severe and radically alter the international view of Israel in Palestine’s favour.

It didn’t happen. The US and Britain continued to supply Israel with weapons. The Arab states, while mouthing stuff about negotiations and ceasefires, did nothing to stop the slaughter in Gaza. Iranian surrogates such as Hezbollah attempted some retaliation but were soundly and roundly seen off. So, with Iran’s attempt.

Yes, there was condemnation of Mr Netanyahu’s government and he was indicted for war crimes, but these were, in the circumstances, symbolic gestures. Nuremberg wouldn’t have happened if the Nazis had won!

But now one must ask if the intervention of Mr Macron and Mr Starmer and the possible formation of a larger coalition with the same demand, has proved that Hamas’ terror strategy has finally yielded some result? Even the French-British statements will lead to the dissolution of Hamas and the probable proscription of any organisation that supports strategies which echo the “from the river to the sea” slogan, which in most interpretations means the annihilation of Israel.

Even if in the end some compromise is worked out and there is a two-state solution -- which very many Israelis and even past politicians of Israeli governments have been and are still in favour of -- there will be those in the world population who insist that no people have the right to drive another population, of different ethnic or religious persuasions from themselves, off their homeland.

Though one can sympathise with this principle, let’s just think history. Aryans in India? The European occupation of Native American USA? Australia and New Zealand…???

Gentle reader, I grew up in Poona (now Pune) in western India with a handful of Baghdadi Jewish close friends whose families had settled in our town. I used to go to their houses and was aware of their fervent support for the Israeli State. At their family gatherings they would sing patriotic songs about turning the Negev desert into fertile land. They would boast about the socialistic, collective life of the kibbutz!

Then came the opposite view. The editor of the popular weekly rag called Blitz, R.K. Karanjia, wrote a book called The Dagger of Israel. It argued persuasively against the existence of the country. My deep friendship and my reading of the book pulled in opposite directions.

With the arrogance of adolescence, I thought that a one-state solution, in which Palestinians and Israelis would share a secular state and democratic country with absolute safeguards for the minority community -- one or the other -- should settle the problem.

Unfortunately, this world is not a make-believe utopia without religious prejudices and books proclaiming the allocation of land by God. That won’t change.

Stop the slaughter -- bring on the two-state solution.