Gaza

Baroness Morgan of Ely Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)]

My Lords, in September, 22 years will have passed since the famous Arafat-Rabin handshake in Washington—the Oslo agreement that promised so much but has delivered so little. The tragedy of Palestine, and Gaza in particular, continues unabated. Nobody can forget the dreadful scenes that we saw on our televisions last summer. It is of course essential that we recognise that there is fault on both sides. If Hamas wants to see an end to the constant blockades and incursions, it needs to refrain from lobbing indiscriminate rockets into Israel and to recognise the right of Israel to exist. It also needs to stop hiding weapons in schools.

The noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, in our last Palestine debate in January powerfully read out excerpts from Hamas’s Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement, which frighteningly set out some of the organisation’s rules and principles, including the encouragement to jihad. But Israel, as a respected friend of the UK, needs to be told in no uncertain terms that it needs to respect international law, to stop killing innocent civilians, and to stop building on land that is not its own. There are extremists on both sides, and they need to understand that the whole region is in a great deal more precarious a state than it has been in for decades. Now would be a good time for both sides to compromise.

It is essential that we do not forget the devastation that has been brought on the Gaza Strip: massive youth unemployment, shelled houses, limited imports and exports due to the blockades. Many noble Lords have detailed last summer’s appalling death toll—mostly civilians and many children. As the noble Lords, Lord Sheikh and Lord Ahmed, emphasised, over 100,000 people in Gaza are thought to have had their homes destroyed, and not a single one of these has been reconstructed in the last year. But it is also unacceptable that 69 Israelis were killed including four civilians. Israeli people need to feel safe in their homes and when they travel, and we must see an end to indiscriminate bombings on buses and murders in synagogues.

It must be emphasised that the UN Human Rights Council has concluded that there was evidence of atrocities and suspected war crimes on both sides in the conflict last summer. However, the disproportionate number of casualties on the Palestinian side compared to the Israeli side speaks for itself. People around the world saw that as unjustifiable.

King Abdullah of Jordan stressed that ISIS’s ability to recruit foreign fighters was aided by last summer’s conflict between Israel and Palestine. He said that many of those who joined the group were spurred on by the perceived persecution of the Palestinians. With IS gaining strength in the region, including last week in Sinai, Hamas needs to understand that now would be a good time to reach out and go for peace. At the start of this month a new video was released by ISIS militants who have directly threatened to overthrow Hamas in Gaza, because the group is not extreme enough. Even the former head of Mossad says that direct dialogue by Israel with its sworn enemy could lead to a form of mutual coexistence. Are the Government aware of any quiet negotiations taking place between Israel and Hamas at the moment?

In order to break the deadlock, Israel needs to halt its illegal and continued settlement expansion and land confiscation in the West Bank. The number of Israeli settlers in the Palestinian West Bank grew by approximately 85% after the Oslo accords were signed. Labour is firmly of the view that we need a two-state solution, but we need to ensure that Palestine can be a viable state. Constant and illegal land grabs make this more difficult by the week. The new Israeli Government have announced new plans to build further settlements. Beyond condemnation, what action are the UK Government taking to end the settlement expansion that they agree is illegal? Does the Minister really believe there can be a peace agreement when the Israeli Government continue to act in this way, when Netanyahu suggested during his election that he did not want to see a two-state solution, and when the US priority for this region has changed?

Palestine and Gaza cannot be dealt with in isolation from other events and battles going on in the region. While the continuing advance of IS is of profound concern, we cannot ignore the festering sore that has lasted for so many decades in Palestine. We need to work towards a lifting of the blockade, an honouring of the pledges for reconstruction, and an understanding from both the Israelis and the Palestinians that they have a great deal more to lose than to gain from the continued absence of peace.