Middle East and North Africa

Baroness Morris of Bolton Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Bolton (Con)]

My Lords, the last four months have witnessed some of the most distressing and tragic events in a region which for too long has been scarred by violence and turmoil. From the plight of the Yazidis on Mount Sinjar to the horrors in Gaza, people have been profoundly moved by what has unfolded. I join with other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lord Risby for securing such an important debate, and for opening it with such knowledge and clarity. I agree with my noble friend Lord Lamont about the force of the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Sacks, and my noble friend Lady Warsi.

I will concentrate my remarks today on the situation in Gaza and on recognition of Palestine. I declare my interests as chairman of the Conservative Middle East Council, the Prime Minister’s trade envoy to the Palestinian Territories, and president of Medical Aid for Palestinians. In late May this year, in my role as trade envoy, I visited the West Bank and Jerusalem, and I also attempted to visit Gaza. I sat for three and a half hours at the Yad Mordechai café outside Erez—and very nice it was—drinking a lot of coffee while my papers were finalised: but sadly I was not allowed in.

I had a full programme arranged with many people waiting for me, and so I telephoned everyone I was supposed to meet to apologise. They were wonderfully good humoured, and welcomed me to their uncertain world. Everyone I spoke to was hopeful that the unity Government who had just been announced and who had been welcomed by the international community would lead quickly to free, full and fair elections, and to the lifting of the siege of Gaza. They said quite rightly that people who are economically active want to live in peace.

How cruelly their dreams were smashed. The kidnap and brutal murder of three Israeli teenagers in June and the horrific death of a 16 year-old Palestinian, burned alive in July, led to the escalation of a situation which was already on a knife edge. Accounts of who did what, when—who fired the first shots or launched the first rockets—will differ from side to side. The only certainty is that too many innocent men, women and children have died, and it has to stop.

In the 51 days of attacks on Gaza, 66 Israeli soldiers and seven civilians, including a baby, were killed. In Gaza, 91 entire families were wiped out, 2,131 people were killed—500 of them children—and 1,500 children were orphaned. Every day, more and more children were rushed to Gaza’s hospitals, with tissue blasted apart, bones shattered and limbs missing. One thousand people, many of them children, will be permanently disabled as a result of their injuries.

During the crisis, around 500,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes, and it is estimated that 100,000 of them remain homeless with winter fast approaching. Last year, it snowed in Gaza; this year, there has already been heavy rain, with streets flooding. The promises from the reconstruction conference in Cairo, welcome as they are, need to be translated quickly into practical solutions that will make a real difference to people’s lives. Here, I would like to place on record my thanks to the Prime Minister and the Government for the lead they took in providing much-needed medical assistance to Gaza and for the commitment to further, generous funding, of which MAP is a significant beneficiary, for the necessary long-term medical work that will be required.

A seven year-old child in Gaza will now have lived through three military incursions. The businesspeople and doctors I spoke to who were so hopeful in May will, for the third time in seven years, have to rebuild their homes, their businesses and their shattered families. In the intervening periods between the violence, the decent ordinary people of Gaza are not free to travel, to trade or to enjoy the freedoms that we take for granted. If we are to break this cycle of death and destruction, the future for Gaza has to lead to an end to the blockade and to economic freedom.

The future must also hold out the hope of freedom for the whole of Palestine. The occupation of the West Bank, now the longest occupation in history, brings with it the daily disruption and humiliation of the Palestinian people and the continued building of settlements—I was very pleased to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, said on that. My right honourable friend Sir Alan Duncan, in a recent searching and brave speech at RUSI, said that the illegal settlements are an offence to democratic principles and the rule of law. In the debate on the recognition of Palestine in another place on 14 July, my right honourable friend Sir Richard Ottaway said very movingly that he had stood by Israel through thick and thin, but that the recent annexation of 950 acres of the West Bank had outraged him more than anything else in his political life. I recommend both speeches to your Lordships.

The Conservative Middle East Council was set up under Margaret Thatcher in 1980 after the then nine members of the European Economic Community signed the Venice Declaration, which, among other things, stated that the continued building of settlements was a barrier to peace. As my noble friend Lady Warsi said, William Hague warned last year that the prospects for a two-state solution were rapidly running out. With yet another failed peace process, something has to change if we do not want that warning to become a reality. That change should be recognition of Palestine.

We cannot uphold the right of others around the world to stand up for their freedom and self-determination and deny that same right to the Palestinians. Through our shared history, Great Britain has a special responsibility to Palestine, which we should discharge by recognising Palestine as a sovereign state alongside the sovereign state of Israel as an important step to peace.

The Palestinians are for the most part just like anyone else around the world—decent and moderate. But moderate people need hope. The Palestinians and the Israelis have no alternative but to live freely, prosperously, peacefully and securely side by side: but unless there is freedom and prosperity and recognition for all, there will be no lasting peace and security.