Your report that the Foreign Office’s position is that it will recognise Palestine at an “appropriate moment of maximum impact” brings to mind conversations I had in 1975 with two Labour foreign ministers, Roy Hattersley and David Ennals (Labour MPs push for Foreign Office to recognise Palestinian statehood, 13 April).
While both ministers agreed in principle with my proposal in a Fabian pamphlet for a Palestinian state alongside Israel, they were adamant that then was not the right time. It is extraordinary that this conviction is still parroted by some of their ministerial counterparts today, 50 years later.
