DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now the Arab-Israeli conflict is one of the most, if not the most divisive issues in the world and tomorrow it looks set to divide all three main parties in the British parliament.  MPs here will be asked to vote on whether the British government should recognise the State of Palestine.  Sir Alan Duncan is a Conservative MP and until this year was a Minister for International Development, he joins me now from Rutland.  A very good morning to you, Sir Alan, and the key question here is do you feel it would aid the progress or even the restarting of the peace process if Palestine were recognised as an independent state?   

ALAN DUNCAN: I think everyone uses this as an excuse not to recognise them but I think we have an historic and a moral duty to recognise Palestine, there is no reason not to.  We recognised Israel in 1948 after a rather nasty civil war there and now for too long Palestine has been occupied, they are living a miserable life, the Israelis illegally are continuing bit by bit to build on land which is not theirs and it is high time the world recognised Palestine as 134 out of about 160 countries have already done in the United Nations and I think it rather brings shame on us with our historic responsibility following the British mandate over that part of the world we have sort of stood back from taking what I think is an important moral step in recognising Palestine as a state.  

DM: But why would it aid the peace process?  It would in effect be bouncing the Israelis into it.  We know they are fiercely opposed.  

ALAN DUNCAN: I’m sorry, I don’t accept your word ‘bouncing the Israelis’ because the other side of that coin is that you are looking at a country in occupation where the rule of law is not being met by the Israelis, who are building settlements all over the West Bank and it’s not their country.  This does not in any way impede the path towards a permanent agreement between the two countries, indeed I think it would be a very important contribution to it.  It would give Palestine what is theirs by right and what in fact we are doing by not giving them recognition as a state is giving in actually to illegality and to bullying and I think that is something that politicians should not subject themselves to.  I think we need to show more courage, more moral courage and make a stand on behalf of Palestinians who have been so badly treated for so long.  

DM: So then it would criminalise any Israeli military actions in that state.  The Israelis say they take defensive actions, they punish terrorism, this would be an illegal attack on an independent country.  

ALAN DUNCAN: This is the language the Israelis use but every single day they are building illegally on land which is not theirs.  Now they say they are a democracy, if they are a democracy then they should follow the rule of law and what we are doing by not recognising Palestine is to, if you like, permit that continuing illegality which the Israelis should not be allowed to do.  Now there will be land swaps, everyone accepts that because things have changed since the 1967 borders were designated by the United Nations there will be some alternations to it and that is what the negotiations should be about but that doesn’t mean that you should deny the Palestinians their fundamental right which is recognition as a state and I defy you to identify any other populous area of the world which is technically in law not disputed, which is not allowed to call itself a state.  What is it about Palestine that stops the decent world saying that they are entitled to be a country like any other?  

DM: What about the thousands of Israelis who find themselves, for whatever reason, the wrong side of the border?  Would they be forcibly repatriated or stateless?  

ALAN DUNCAN: Well that very question of course says that because they’re there and they’re there illegally, that they should remain there.  The starting point has to be that they are illegal inhabitants of another country but of course a lot of them are going to remain.  You weaken the hand of the rightful Palestinian state by not giving them recognition now and as every day goes by there are more and more of these settlements being built which if you like entrenches the illegal structure that you’ve just described and I will be making what I hope will be a considered and seriously studied speech on Tuesday at the Royal United Services Institute on exactly this issue.  

DM: Sir Alan, good to talk to you, thank you very much indeed. Sir Alan Duncan there.