What Does David Lammy Mean by a State?

The Foreign Secretary speaking to a House of Lords Select Committee said the following:

It is unacceptable for any group of people to have lived with no state for longer than I’ve been alive.


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28 Comments
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JeremyP99
11 months ago

Whilst the Jews lived without a state for 3,000 years.

What a cretin

Pete Sutton
Pete Sutton
11 months ago

Look at the state of Lammy! (sorry,wrong sort of state)

transmissionofflame
11 months ago

I think we have enough things to worry about in our own “state”.

ACW
ACW
11 months ago

State-cabal 🤔

Jeff Chambers
Jeff Chambers
11 months ago

A state is something which is recognised by other states as being a state.

Our rulers are becoming ever more detached from reality. It’s something to do with the four Ds: decadence, degeneracy, derangement, all of which express their death-wish.

BS Whitworth
BS Whitworth
11 months ago

Israel has offered a two-state solution five times and the Arabs have always rejected the idea. Lammy is an ignorant cretin.

Gezza England
Gezza England
11 months ago
Reply to  BS Whitworth

And that is probably being unkind to ignorant cretins.

RTSC
RTSC
11 months ago

Look at the state of the UK. And that’s down to the fact that DEI idiots like Lammy have been elected to Parliament.

CGW
CGW
11 months ago

Well, Israel calls itself the State of Israel, so why should there not be a State of Palestine? The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on May 10, 2024, recognizing the State of Palestine as qualified for full membership in the United Nations. The resolution was approved by a vote of 143 in favour, 9 against, and 25 abstentions. The United States and Israel were among those voting against the resolution. International law says there should be a State of Palestine, the UN General Assembly says there should be a State of Palestine, the G20 countries say there should be a State of Palestine, the Arab peace initiative says there should be a two-state solution with a State of Palestine, the whole world is on this side except the USA, dominated by the Israel lobby. And, for the 100th time, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict did not start on 7th October 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba: During the foundational events of the Nakba in 1948, approximately half of Palestine’s predominantly Arab population, or around 750,000 people, were expelled from their homes or made to flee through various violent means, at first by Zionist paramilitaries, and after the establishment of the State of Israel, by… Read more »

JXB
JXB
11 months ago
Reply to  CGW

“… so why should there not be a State of Palestine?”

Because they don’t want one. Accepting a Palestinian State would de facto mean recognition of the existence of the State of Israel. Palestinians want to eradicate the State of Israel and the territory to be subsumed by them.

They were offered a State in 1948 and again during the Presidency of Bill Clinton who put a great deal of effort in trying to establish a State for Palestinians next to Israel – they walked away.

Repeat: they don’t want a State they want the elimination of all Jews.

CGW
CGW
11 months ago
Reply to  JXB

The basic problem is very simply that Palestine used to belong to Palestinians, of whom a small percentage were Jews with whom nobody had any problems.  Then came British rule and, for whatever reason, the British decided it was OK to support Zionist extremists who wanted to set up a solely Jewish state somewhere in the world, and that ‘somewhere’ ended up being Palestine. A trickle of primarily European Jews over the decades developed into a flood in the 1930s, bringing with them plenty of wealth and accordingly powerful support, particularly from USA. With ever increasing numbers and ever increasing power, it is hardly surprising that conflict ensued and, as always, whoever has the best and most modern armament wins. Decades have passed and Palestinians are now corralled into small areas of their original country (the Gaza Strip and the West Bank) where they are essentially robbed of their right to exist. Israeli ‘Settlers’ (violent, armed thugs) kill Palestinians at will and rob them of their property. Thousands upon thousands of Palestinians of all ages (including children) were, and are, arbitrarily imprisoned by Israel without trial, suffering brutal treatment and torture. Then came 7th October 2023 and the past 19 months… Read more »

Matt Dalby
Matt Dalby
11 months ago
Reply to  CGW

This shows a complete lack of understanding of history and the Middle East.
Most of the borders in the Middle East were drawn by the British and French after the collapse of the Ottoman empire at the end of WW1. The borders were drawn the way there were because they suited the British and French and didn’t reflect where different ethnic groups tended to live. For example the Alawites, Druze and Kurds didn’t get a recognised homeland and there were probably as many “Palestinians” on the East Bank of the Jordan as there were in the area the British called Palestine, which was also home to large numbers of Arabs and Druze. Logically this means that huge numbers of people who lived in Palestine between the 2 World Wars weren’t “Palestinians” and people who now identify as Palestinians can’t claim that all, or even most, of Israel is their ancestral homeland that they should be given.

CGW
CGW
11 months ago
Reply to  Matt Dalby

I certainly do not claim to be a historian but there is a lengthy explanation of the history here: https://www.un.org/unispal/history2/origins-and-evolution-of-the-palestine-problem/. In addition, if you have read T.E. Lawrence’s “Seven Pillars of Wisdom”, you will agree that the areas under Turkish rule were formerly inhabited and with flourishing agriculture and a historical culture.

At the close of the First World War the remnants of the Ottoman Empire were indeed ‘arbitrarily’ divided up between Britain, France and Russia (later also Italy), but to claim that foreigners distributed around the world whose ancestors supposedly lived there 2,600 years ago have a superior right to that land is as ridiculous as saying modern day Italians have the right to occupy England because Ancient Rome once ruled the place.

However, history is history and the State of Israel exists. The problem is how to compensate the losses of the indigenous people, instead of slaughtering them and all their neighbours.

Sforzesca
Sforzesca
11 months ago
Reply to  CGW

Sad to say but you’re wasting your time on most here.
They bleat on about the power of the media influencing Covid, Vaccines, ClimateChange Ukraine etc. yet somehow manage to miss the oldest and best of them all ie the Jewish propaganda pumped out ad nausium since 1948

In short they’ve been brainwashed and by definition can’t realise it.

Please listen to Jeffrey Sachs. He is Jewish by the way.
Also, when Israel has its Greater Israel where exactly do you think all the surviving brown people will be headed for?

CGW
CGW
11 months ago
Reply to  Sforzesca

Yes, I have often been astounded by the comments here, many advocating the genocide which the Western world is happily turning a blind eye to (while continuing to feed Israel with weapons and continuing to feed us with Israeli propaganda). Surely some people watch UK Column or the many other independent sources of information on what is happening in the Middle East? Surely not everyone can believe it is Israel’s god-given right to bomb practically every surrounding country? Surely nobody believes that killing children can be justified under any circumstances?

Scepticism of Israel’s claim to always be acting in self-defence seems to be in short demand on this platform.

Matt Dalby
Matt Dalby
11 months ago
Reply to  Sforzesca

You’re wasting your time. If you judge public opinion by the comments that are left on media sites, including MSN, support for the Palestinians has been declining for at least 6 months (what has happened to Glass Half Full? hopefully they’ve crawled back under the rock they emerged from) as people finally realise that the Palestinians and the barbaric baby butcherers of Hamas are pretty much one and the same and that Israel, for all it’s flaws, is on the right side of a clash of beliefs and is fully justified to try and destroy an enemy that would destroy it and 4 million people given the chance.

CGW
CGW
11 months ago
Reply to  Matt Dalby

“Palestinians and the barbaric baby butcherers of Hamas” means you have been fully taken in by Israeli propaganda.

Anybody supporting a genocide, no matter where, should “crawl back under a rock”, in my opinion.

The history of Israel has been, and continues to be, a history of violence. And sitting there armed (illegally) with nuclear weapons and wiping out its indigenous population, while threatening every surrounding country, can neither be an envious situation, nor a stable one.

And to believe that nobody supports the Palestinians in the area is also Western ideology. The problem is, as always, USA that unconditionally supports its Israeli paymasters and controls the Jordanian monarchy, the Egyptian military junta, has now replaced the Syrian leader with Al-Qaeda terrorists, and previously murdered millions in Iraq, and so on and so forth.

Matt Dalby
Matt Dalby
11 months ago
Reply to  CGW

The Arab Israeli conflict start in 1948 when Arab armies attacked Israel to try and destroy the fledgling state,
In 1948 the UN gave the Palestinians in state in the West Bank. They promptly joined with Palestinians on the East Bank to try and seize control of the whole of Jordan. They were defeated and Jordan occupied the West Bank the vile colonising bastards, sorry this can’t be true because Jordanians aren’t white or Jewish and therefore can’t colonise or oppress anyone, until the 1967 war. Therefore it’s the Palestinians own fault that they don’t have a state.

CGW
CGW
11 months ago
Reply to  Matt Dalby

Perhaps the Arab armies were upset at foreigners declaring a fledgling state? Perhaps the original colonisers, Turkey, Britain, France, are to blame? Probably, but that is the way it is. The problem now is to find a solution and violence never leads to a stable situation.

JXB
JXB
11 months ago

States – a Body Politic within borders with a Government – have to be built by the people.

The Palestinians aren’t builders just destroyers. So that’s why Mr Lamebrain why they don’t have one.

They have had ample opportunity to build a State or even two States in Gaza and the West Bank.

They also had an opportunity in 1948 to build a State with a land area greater than the then State of Israel.

States cannot be created by drawing lines on a map no matter how many Countries say something is a State, but what that can create is a whole heap of trouble, conflict, war. Take a look at the “States” created by the Versailles Treaty carved out of Austro-Hungary, the State of West & East Pakistan, and that State called “Ukraine” created in 1991.

zebedee
zebedee
11 months ago

Statistics is the data of the state.

Matt Dalby
Matt Dalby
11 months ago

We should have referred to the Chagossians who not only don’t have a state but have lived in exile for 58 years and have been sold down the river by the Liebour government, although obviously their betrayal started under the Tories.

Richard Lyon
Richard Lyon
11 months ago

The author seems argues that Palestine is not a State and cannot be a State because some others do not recognise it to be one.

So if some others decided tomorrow not to recognise the UK as a State, would we cease to exist? What would the “thing” that occupied the islands of the United Kingdom be referred to as?

Claphamanian
Claphamanian
11 months ago

Surely the Professor misses the wood for the trees. What makes the ocean? The water or the tides of the Moon?

Mr Lammy is diagnosing the condition of the Palestinians as a result of them not having the benefits of the State.

The signifier of the Left is their ideological commitment to the State. The power of the state should be extended to the point where the needs of all in society can be maximally satisfied. In turn, this rests on the belief that all perceived human needs can be met.

This can be summed up as a faith in Progress (capitalised). Mr Lammy expresses his faith in such when he says he retains optimism.

The last Pope Leo, Leo the Thirteenth, identifying the errors of his time at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, proposed that social justice should be accomplished by the state being guarantor of such. What might then be said of the statolatry of Russia, Germany and Italy?

One might note that Mr Lammy mentions Apartheid. Some have accuse the State of Israel of being such a state. His reference to the Cold War is unfortunate given current developments.

For a fist full of roubles

States are very important to heads of state.

For a fist full of roubles

And to Americans it is very important that their states are united.

David
David
11 months ago

James – Re definitions of ‘the state’. How about ‘that institution which maintains a monopoly of the legitimate use of force in a given territory’? This harks back to the role which kings played centuries ago; NB Louis XIV ‘L’etat, c’est moi” and the use of ‘sovereign state’ to describe a republic.

Re the role of European powers in drawing boundaries in the Middle East. Certainly very clumsy but reflective of their view that states with constitutions and legalised power structures were better than the tribalism which characterised life in the whole area in spite of the Ottomans.

sskinner
11 months ago

Multiculturalism is doing a good job of making the indigenous British and first nation Europeans stateless.