Labour's Emily Thornberry: 'you can either have a democratic or Jewish state'

In a striking departure from conventional UK government rhetoric on Israel, Emily Thornberry, Labour MP and chair of parliament's foreign affairs select committee, said: "You can either have a democratic state or you can have a Jewish state."

The comments were made during a discussion in parliament on whether a one-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict would be viable.

Mention of a one-state solution is unusual in British politics, since there is bipartisan agreement between the Labour government and Conservative opposition that there should be a two-state solution to the conflict. 

Thornberry told Middle East Eye her remark meant that "if Israel wants to be a largely Jewish democratic state, then it needs to pursue a two-state solution.

"A one-state solution would not be largely Jewish, it would be largely Palestinian."

At a meeting of the foreign affairs select committee on Tuesday afternoon, former Middle East minister Alistair Burt, who was in the position between 2017 and 2019, took questions from the committee regarding his views on Israel's war on Gaza and a potential political settlement following the war.

Burt suggested during the meeting that a settlement involving one democratic state in which Israelis and Palestinians live together equally is unfeasible, because Israel would not agree to it.

Asked whether he thought a two-state solution was the only solution to the conflict, Burt agreed - while noting that many "think this has gone".

However, he said: "I've not been able to come across what seems to me to be a credible one state solution."

He explained: "I was in Doha recently for a conference and I spoke to quite a number of young Palestinians who said, 'it's a two-state delusion. We don't want two states, we want one. Everybody can live here side by side together'."

"But of course that's not a Jewish state," Burt added.

Emily Thornberry, chair of the committee, then said: "You can either have a democratic state or you can have a Jewish state."

Burt agreed and explained: "I've not spoken to anyone who thinks it it will be credible for Israel to agree to a situation in which it does not have command of its territory, and safety and security for historical reasons and everything else.

"So that's why even though there are plenty of quite angry voices saying, 'well, why shouldn't there be just one state? And we can all live together and we'll have the same rights. What's anybody got against us having the same rights?' The practicalities would appear it's just not going to happen.

"That's why I think two states is still for me a better answer than anything else." Thornberry was seen nodding during these remarks.

Jewish state not democratic

Both Thornberry and Burt seemed to be referring to the fact that if Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories became a single democratic state, Palestinians would be a demographic majority and the state would lose its Jewish character and majority.

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Israel currently occupies the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip and employs a dual system that gives Israeli citizens different rights to Palestinian who don't carry Israeli nationality.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion in July which found that Israel's decades-long occupation of the Palestinian territories was "unlawful".

If said that Israel's "near-complete separation" of people in the occupied West Bank breached international laws concerning "racial segregation" and "apartheid."

The British government officially recognises the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza and Syria's Golan Heights as being under Israeli occupation and opposes Israeli settlements in those territories.