The possibility that the two-state solution could be part of the problem is too awful to contemplate

A friend of mine suggests, preposterously, that David Lammy will be the next prime minister. This idea has the merit of being original.

And it is certainly true that we could do with a new Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer having proved himself the slave of whatever gust of public opinion is currently terrifying his own backbenchers.

But the idea that Lammy might offer leadership instead of the present followership is risible. In his well-received speech this week at the United Nations, presumably drafted for him by some bright young official in his private office, he committed the Government to the policy advanced 108 years ago by “my predecessor as British Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour”.

Balfour declared on 2nd November 1917 that “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people…it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”.

Lammy changed the second half of this to make it sound as if Balfour had promised to uphold the civil and religious rights of “the Palestinian people”, rather than of “existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”.

But the bright young official was right to observe that today’s two-state solution can be traced back to Balfour.

He was a statesman of superlative wit, charm and intellect, but suffered, when faced by difficult decisions, from a fatal disinclination to commit himself.

As Prime Minister from 1902-05, he had to cope with the disastrous split in the Conservative Party between free traders and tariff reformers, and duly “nailed his colours to the fence”, as his friend Harry Cust remarked.

Nobody could understand the middle way advocated by Balfour, who was reduced to admitting that he himself had no “settled convictions” on the matter.

The zigzag course of Starmer as he strives to appease first one side and then the other is a consequence of the long-term attempt to please both, by accepting their claims to the same piece of ground on which to build their nation states.

The liberal mind finds it impossible to accept that rival claims to the same territory are incompatible. To the liberal, it seems that an equitable compromise, under which each nation gets enough territory to be satisfied, must be attainable.

But one of the problems with natjonalism is that its adherents are often far from liberal. Consider the opening remarks of Elie Kedourie in Nationalism, first published in 1960:

“Nationalism is a doctrine invented in Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century… Briefly, the doctrine holds that humanity is naturally divided into nations, that nations are known by certain characteristics which can be ascertained, and that the only legitimate type of government is national self-government.”

This last point is essential. The nationalist will not be satisfied with anything short of self-government. The “civil and religious rights” Balfour promised to uphold, and which could be upheld by an imperial power, are of no value unless conferred by a national government.

Starmer has in recent days been reproached for giving Hamas every incentive not to agree to a ceasefire, for as long as there is no ceasefire, Britain will in September recognise the state of Palestine.

I am sure Starmer did not intend to give Hamas this incentive. To well-meaning liberals such as the Prime Minister,  recognition of the state of Palestine is so self-evidently the right thing to do that only the timing of the declaration remains to be decided.

But the consequence of this liberal assumption is to give legitimacy to terrorists. In the sacred name of the nation, any abomination can be committed. Hitler realised this, Putin realises it, Hamas has long known it.

Kedourie, a Jew born in Baghdad in 1926 who spent most of his working life at the London School of Economics, could not help noticing that although atrocities occurred in the Ottoman Empire, these were less frequent than in the period after its fall, and minorities often felt safer.

He made a close study of British policy in the Middle East from the First World War onwards, and came to the view, in The Chatham House Version and other essays, that by promoting nationalism, the British failed to create true nations, a European invention, in the Middle East, but instead enabled despots to legitimise their crimes by proclaiming themselves to be Arab nationalists.

What now is to be done about the horrors in Gaza? Day after day we are presented with reports of the abominable sufferings of the inhabitants of that land.

Day after day, we listen to inglorious squabbles about who is most to blame for this unbearable state of affairs. Day after day, we hear calls from liberal-minded commentators for the Americans to intervene.

Whether the Americans have the will to embark on a serious intervention may be doubted. If they go much beyond gesture politics, they will find themselves dismissed as imperialists, and be rewarded with the blame of those they better, the hate of those they guard.

But one notes that even the most liberal-minded commentators, who hold to the two-state solution, do not imagine it can be implemented without American pressure.

Liberal imperialism still has its place, but must not be called that. The two-state solution remains the answer, and the possibility that by giving terrorists a noble but unattainable goal to fight for, it could actually be part of the problem, is too awful to contemplate.

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