Ex envoy in Jerusalem urges UK to recognize Palestinian state
Vincent Fean, who left his post as Britain's consul earlier this year, says move would facilitate two-state solution
Britain should unilaterally recognize Palestine as a sovereign state as a way of jump-starting the stalled process toward an Israeli-Palestinian two-state solution, the UK’s former consul general in Jerusalem wrote in an op-ed published Wednesday.
Diplomat Vincent Fean, who served in the British Consulate in Jerusalem from 2010 until the start of 2014, said that because of the UK’s historical connection to the region, unilateral recognition of the state of Palestine can “change the dynamic in the EU and at the UN.”
“Where we lead, Europe will follow – and there is urgency,” Fean wrote in the Telegraph.
“Why the UK, you may ask? Well, we are party to the history of this conflict – originators of the Balfour Declaration and holders of the Mandate for Palestine between 1920 and 1948. Under the Mandate, we took on a ‘sacred trust of civilization’ to advance the welfare of the Palestinian people and guide them to independence,” he added.
A two-state endgame is “the only viable solution,” and both Israelis and Palestinians deserve security and statehood, Fean wrote. Bilateral recognition of Palestine “is in the UK’s gift” and would not be “tied to any Palestinian political party.”
The moment for recognition “is now. For this veto-bearing permanent member of the Security Council, a further abstention is abdicating responsibility. If we choose to act decisively, we change the dynamic in the EU and at the UN,” Fean stressed.
In Fean’s opinion, the two-state solution would closely resemble the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, and would entail that “the two states will determine borders based on 1967 lines, with agreed land swaps of equal size and value; that Gaza will be demilitarized, like the rest of Palestine, and linked with the West Bank; and that Jerusalem will be the shared capital of both states, which will agree a just and fair solution to the refugee question.”
For this to work, Palestinians must adhere to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s “policy of non-violence and full security co-operation with Israel, across the territory of Palestine, plus early, free and fair elections…recognition will renew Palestinian belief that the path of non-violence, not the Hamas path, leads somewhere: to a state coming into being through diplomacy and democratic expression, not destruction.”
Fean was forced to flee Ramallah’s Birzeit University in March 2013, when a student protest against his visit turned violent.
Dozens of students surrounded the university’s administrative building while Fean was meeting university president Khalil Hindy, the Ma’an news agency reported. Campus security protected Fean from the crowd as he left the building, shoving him into his waiting car. The protesting students then began to strike the vehicle and broke one of its mirrors, the report said.
Students were said to have been protesting “Britain’s position on the Palestinian question,” as well as its historic stance on Israel, showcased in the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the first British endorsement of Jewish national aspirations.