Israel and Palestine

Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale]

My Lords, I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, for presenting this subject. Like her, I believe that the role of civil society is of the utmost importance in promoting peace for Israelis and Palestinians.

Peace will not be achieved by violence but, as we all know, by a combination of political agreements based on mutual trust and respect, as my noble friend Lord Janner said, which have to be carefully, slowly—and, unfortunately, probably painfully—established at all levels of society. However, happily, as this debate has shown, we are not starting from zero. There are lots of good tales to tell, and there are some marvellous organisations working in the area for the achievement of a two-state solution and for a peaceful and happy life for the inhabitants of both a future Palestine and of Israel.

If more NGOs and organisations that one talks about are based in Israel, that is not because of any bias or anything other than the fact that Israel is home to some very highly regarded NGOs that promote peaceful coexistence and seek to foster greater understanding and collaboration between the two communities. There is greater freedom for this kind of activity in Israel even than in the West Bank, and certainly now in Gaza since Hamas took over, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, has said in more detail, has closed down NGOs and any voluntary organisations or charities that seem to support, to quote Hamas, “normalisation with Israelis”. That is an offence that means that you get closed down there.

Around one-third of Israelis are involved in social activism of one kind or another, and 25% of those are young people. Therein lies our hope. It is natural that they have this inheritance because, after all, the establishment of kibbutzim was a central part of the foundation of the Israeli state, and young Israelis are at the heart of nearly all the peace movements, especially, as noble Lords have already mentioned today, OneVoice, where you find a great majority of the young, both Palestinians and Israelis.

As other noble Lords have said, we do not have time to go through all the wonderful organisations that do great work in that area, sometimes in slightly dangerous circumstances for themselves. I cannot, for example, go into the trade union movement and what it is doing; the Israeli Histadrut and the Palestinian PGFTU have many projects together. There are many medical projects and co-operation between hospitals on the West Bank, and many religious organisations doing great work.

I want to speak about my favourite organisation, Hand in Hand, which has been mentioned more than once already. It is a marvellous organisation and deals with the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, raised in her speech, when she spoke about the terrible problem that the two languages present to any class of society that does not automatically have English or a mutual language. Hand in Hand does so well in that because it has bilingual schools in Arabic and Hebrew.

I had the same sort of emotional experience as that mentioned by the right reverend Prelate when I met young Palestinian girls. When I looked at the children in those schools together, I was filled with admiration for the courage of the parents and the teachers. There is an Arab and Jewish teacher for each class. The courage they show against prejudice inside their own communities brought back memories of a similar experience—the only other time that I have had such an experience—in Belfast. I visited an integrated school in Belfast where the parents and the teachers were bravely facing the pressures and threats from two communities. That is exactly what the Hand in Hand people do in Israel. I am very proud that the British Council now supports Hand in Hand. When I saw the bravery of the parents and teachers I felt that they were true peacemakers and deserved to be blessed in whatever religion one is a member of.