Date: 27 / 05 / 2009  Time:  12:16
Bethlehem – Ma’an –

Britain’s foreign secretary, David Miliband, has acknowledged Britain’s historic responsibility for failure to resolve the political crisis in Palestine and Israel.

“Lines drawn on maps by Colonial powers were succeeded, amongst other things, by the failure – it has to be said not just ours - to establish two states in Palestine,” said Miliband in a wide-ranging speech at Oxford’s Center for Islamic Studies on 21 May.

“More recently, the invasion of Iraq, and its aftermath, aroused a sense of bitterness, distrust and resentment. When people hear about Britain, too often they think of these things,” he said.

Critics have assailed the UK, the former colonial power in Mandate Palestine, for refusing to recognize its role in creating the conditions that lead the 1948 war at the creation of Israel and the expulsion of some 700,000 Palestinians from their homeland.

Turning to the contemporary situation, Miliband said that “there is unanimous agreement that we need more political activism and more diplomatic engagement is in the pursuit of a 2-state solution in the Middle East.

The UK official also stressed the need for action on the Palestinian issue, saying, “For people of all faiths and of none, it remains an issue that stirs up an acute sense of injustice and resentment. We need – all of us, in our own ways – to act soon, very soon, to prevent a fatal and final blow to the scope for compromise.”

“The power to create peace in the Middle East is dispersed,” he said, “It requires Fat'h and Hamas to engage in transformational politics not violent conspiracies. It requires the new Israeli government to freeze settlements and accept a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders. It requires the 22 states of the Arab league to be entrepreneurs for coexistence with Israel.”

Miliband also reflected on the need for a complex view of the Middle East and Muslim society more broadly: “If we want to rebuild relations – to forge broader coalitions - we need to show greater respect. That means rejecting the lazy stereotypes and moving beyond the binary division between moderates and extremists. We should not just see Muslims as Muslims, but as people in all the many guises they occupy in their lives – at home, at work, in all the many aspects of a rounded individual life. There is always more to life than is captured by a single label.”