Palestinian Territories

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Thursday 7th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Steel for initiating this debate. As a staunch friend of Israel, and vice president of Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel, I am adamant that Israel’s long-term security depends on achieving a just settlement with the Palestinians. Israel cannot be a healthy democracy when it lives alongside poverty, misery and despair and occupies the territory of a resentful people. A colonial occupation morally demeans Israel as well as harming Palestinians, so Israel needs a Palestinian state—but preferably as a result of a political negotiation.

While I have no problem in principle with unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, I never get an answer when I ask how that helps to catalyse the final-status talks. No answer has come so far today, either. I found the creative ideas of the noble Lord, Lord Polak, very interesting and I will perhaps find out more about them from him afterwards. I am very clear about my own strong criticisms of the Israeli Government, whose political feelings are rather far from my own. These have been enumerated: the “Greater Israel” concept, which is total anathema to me; illegal settlements; disproportionate lethal force without independent investigations; the encouragement of the US embassy move to Jerusalem; withholding revenue from the Palestinian Authority; administrative detention, including of children—all these I deplore.

However, Israel has a right—as does Palestine—to live in security, and to have its existence recognised, including by its neighbours, as a homeland for the Jewish people and those of predominantly Jewish identity; these are terms I much prefer to “Jewish state”. I agree completely with my noble friend Lord Palmer and with much of what has been said by other noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Anderson and Lord Turnberg, about the responsibilities and failings of the Palestinian leadership as well as those of Israel—not least, the glorification of violence and antisemitism. Many years ago, I went to a Palestinian refugee camp on the West Bank—to a hospital; the walls were covered with pictures of AK47s, which I found completely wrong.

In the context of Palestinian responsibility, it is very unhelpful that the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories is mandated to look at violations committed only by Israel, not by the PA, Fatah, or Hamas, some of which have been well documented by bodies like Human Rights Watch. The UN special co-ordinator for the Middle East peace process is, in my opinion, more balanced. He documents that, between 28 and 30 May, over 200 projectiles, rockets and mortar shells were fired from Gaza towards Israel. Most were intercepted but 77 were hits and, as other noble Lords have mentioned, one was on a kindergarten yard. Mr Mladenov called such acts “completely unacceptable”. He also pointed out that rockets fired from Gaza had damaged electricity installations on the Israeli side, resulting in a reduction of over 30% in the only electricity supply to Gaza, which is somewhat of an own goal.

This is not the fault of Israel; neither was the destruction of the infrastructure that the Israelis left behind in Gaza when they pulled out. The special rapporteur is obliged, alongside condemnation of Israel, to point out that punitive measures imposed on the authorities in Gaza by the Palestinian Authority continue to impact negatively on the human rights and humanitarian situation of Gaza’s residents—so there is more balance here. Therefore, although I very much agree with the weight of responsibility on Israel, I believe this is also shared by the Palestinian Authority, Fatah and Hamas.