BRITAIN GOES SOFT(ER) ON HAMAS

British parliamentarians soften demands on Hamas (JPost)
British parliamentarians on Monday softened their demands for negotiating with Hamas and said that while it is critical for the group to renounce violence, it does not necessarily need to recognize Israel for preliminary contact to be established with the European Union, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

In a report to be published on Tuesday, a subcommittee of the House of Lords’ European Union Committee said that the EU should avoid an “undesirably rigid” approach to dealing with Hamas that would risk undermining progress in building viable and democratic Palestinian institutions, a prerequisite, they say, for any peace settlement.

SEE ALSO: The Parliamentary Imagination by Emanuele Ottolenghi (Contentions)
The House of Lords’ EU Committee just released its extensive report, “The EU and the Middle East Peace Process.” Among the pearls of wisdom the report contains: according to the Lords, the EU fathered the ‘imaginative idea’ of the two-state solution. Not the 1947 UN partition plan. Not the 1937 Peel Commission. It was the EU:

Though the U.S. has led the politics [of the peace process], the EU has made a significant policy contribution, not least by taking a lead in producing imaginative ideas, including the two state solution, which were subsequently adopted by the Quartet and the Arab League.

In case you were wondering, you now know why calls to reform this bedrock British institution (and bulwark of unelected privilege) are not entirely out of place.