Middle East

Baroness Tonge Excerpts

Friday 16th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tonge]

My Lords, before I speak about recent developments in Palestine, I want to put on record two personal statements. The first is that I am not anti-Semitic but I am anti-injustice, and the treatment of the Palestinians over the last six decades, by Israel and the international community, has been a gross injustice which has eaten away at peace in the Middle East and served to fuel extreme Islamism and terrorism. The second statement is that I believe that Israel has a right to exist within the 1967 borders; of course I do. Hamas leaders, who I have met in Damascus and Gaza, also accept the existence of Israel within the 1967 borders laid down by the United Nations. Sadly, of course, this has not happened and the actions of the state of Israel are becoming more and more dangerous for Israel itself, the Middle East and the wider world.

The Arab citizens of Israel are marginalised and discriminated against in every way. New laws are being passed all the time to make life more and more difficult for them—on marriage and property rights, for example. Money spent on Arab-Israeli schools, water supplies and infrastructure is a fraction of that spent on Jewish citizens and, as we know, the state of Israel has now been declared the Jewish state of Israel, which has wider implications even for us in how we relate to that country.

It is difficult to see how what is left of the West Bank, for example, will ever form the basis of a secure and prosperous state of Palestine. The security barrier and the settlements, linked by settler-only roads, have gobbled up huge amounts of Palestinian land and the land left to the Palestinians is being made unusable. The whole settler enterprise was referred to as “vandalism” by my party leader, but it is not mindless. It is the deliberate humiliation of the Palestinians since the Oslo agreement—a carefully thought-out strategy, designed to make life for Palestinians impossible.

In Gaza, as many noble Lords who have visited have pointed out in this House, conditions are much worse and no one has dared to say that the real purpose of the blockade is to deliberately ruin the fishing, agricultural and manufacturing industries of Gaza in order to reduce those very talented, hard-working and extremely cheerful people to unemployment and grinding poverty. Our Government deal with these violations of international law by “urging restraint” and “expressing concern”. Those are worthy sentiments, but they do not stop the relentless ethnic cleansing, land grab and what many people would describe as terrorism by the Israeli Air Force, with its targeted assassinations. Because of the pro-Israel lobby’s bullying tactics against anyone who speaks the truth, Israel is allowed to act with impunity.

The Arab spring will not favour Israel. Israel is losing its friends rapidly. Egypt and Turkey are already alienated and others will follow. Even the US Defense Secretary, Mr Panetta, has recently warned Israel to,

“get to the damned table”,

and,

“reach out and mend fences”.

In America, the tide is beginning to turn against Israel. In the nearly 700 letters I have received since my comments at Middlesex University two weeks ago, only 5 per cent were critical. Among the huge support I received for my comments and for the Palestinians, there were many letters from citizens of the United States of America. That has never happened to me before. Therefore, Israel may not be able to rely on the USA for ever. Then what will happen? Israel may indeed have to change in form, a concept discussed by Gideon Levi in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on 4 March.

The warning was clear in Proverbs in the Hebrew Bible, and repeated by St Paul in our own New Testament. It has been the philosophy for many of us throughout our lives that,

“whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap”.

This must be one of the reasons why Israel is trying now to divert attention towards Iran, with talk of nuclear weapons, which is a scenario eerily reminiscent of the run-up to the attacks on Iraq in 2003. An attack on Iran, if it is allowed to happen, will set the Middle East on fire. That is a fire that could spread to the rest of the world. I beg the Minister, in his reply, to recognise the danger of Israel’s behaviour and give us some reassurance that the Government understand and will start taking action to control that country and give justice to the Palestinians before it is too late.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My Lords, as I and, I think, others will have anticipated, this has been a debate of many points of view and many insights, drawn on your Lordships’ colossal experience of dealing with the enormous range of countries that we have covered. I hope that I shall be forgiven straight away if I do not cover satisfactorily all these nations with their situations of change and tumult, but time is the limiting factor.

It was the noble Lord, Lord Williams—who obviously spoke with unique experience in the light of his past employments—who called Syria the eye of the storm. He brought home the ghastly complexity of the issue there and made a grim but, I hope, a realistic comparison with the endless tangles in Bosnia, which took years to unravel. I hope that in a sense his pessimism is wrong when he speaks about the years that it will take for us to see settlement in Syria, but we have to be realistic and he may of course be right.

Many other noble Lords spoke on that issue and I shall try to divide the 20 minutes that I have into commenting mainly on Syria, Iran and the Middle East peace process, and I shall also answer a range of detailed questions from my noble friend Lord Avebury and others. I shall see whether I can get that all in.

The noble Baroness, Lady Symons, in a very well informed speech, asked whether we were liaising with the Arab League. The answer is yes. On Syria, the Friends of Syria mechanism, which has met already and meets next, I think, in Istanbul, is an opportunity for constant dialogue—not merely liaising—with the Arab League about its position. Of course, there are some differences of emphasis within the league, as we know, between those in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who are more forward in suggesting direct help for the opposition groups, and others who are not so certain. We want the Arab League to formulate its views clearly, and we are working with it at every point to address the issue.

It would be incredible if I said that any of us could see exactly how the Syrian scene will work out. Atrocities have been committed that have appalled everybody; the refugee problem is crowding in at the Turkish border, with talk of mines being laid by the Syrian armed forces; it is clear that Iran is helping to import weapons to support the official Syrian army; and it is absolutely clear from the vivid reports of the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, and others that Baba Amr and other places have been utterly flattened and destroyed in a pattern that is unforgivable.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, rightly asked about the position of those who have committed atrocities, and about possible charges in the ICC. I must be careful in the precise words I use to answer him because there are legal constraints. However, as I told your Lordships the other day, we certainly would not rule out referral to the ICC, as suggested by Mrs Pillay. The COI report does not specifically recommend such a referral; nor does the Human Rights Council have the power to refer cases. It would be for the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the ICC prosecutor. I am told—this is in addition to the point that I made the other day—that it could take anything up to a year before this is clarified.

I have not much to add about the grimness of the situation in Syria. Many excellent and wise points were made by noble Lords. The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, and the noble Lords, Lord Wright and Lord Chidgey, all spoke about it, and I will not add anything at this stage.

I turn now to Iran. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said that it was the great shadow over the area, and of course it is. The universal opinion that clearly comes from almost all sides of this debate is that if we reach the stage of bombing and violence it will be a failure of policy. All options remain on the table; we must be realistic. We have a twin-track policy of putting considerable pressure on Iran through financial measures, including the withdrawal of SWIFT facilities that was reported in the press today and was referred to by one noble Lord. We also have in place the oil embargo, which has its problems but is clearly closing in on Iran. That is the pressure side of the track.

The other part of the track is that there must be engagement and talks. Iran has said that it will come back to talks. The noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, who has taken a very forward and skilled lead in dealing with the matter on behalf of the EU3+3 and the western powers, is negotiating on the timing of a meeting. We can all see the danger; this could be a trap. There could be a lot of talk and meanwhile Iran would plunge ahead with its weaponisation, which would lead to a cascade of proliferation in the whole region and potential disasters of almost unimaginable proportions. That must be prevented. That is our twin track. Firing missiles at Iran would be regrettable at any stage; but as the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, said, doing so now would definitely be the wrong course. The debate about whether Israel could act independently is one that we watch with great unease. We would regard it as a disaster to see any kind of unilateral action of that sort at this stage.

The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, asked what if, despite everything, weaponisation—not merely the capability to build nuclear weapons, but the production of them—goes ahead in Iran. This is hypothetical. It would, of course, be a statement that we had failed, but that is just the put-down answer. This is a danger. Could we go in a completely different direction as the noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Hannay, mentioned? Statesmen must turn their minds towards the ideal of moving to a WMD-free or a nuclear-free zone. All international leaders have made statements saying that that is what they would like to see, but we have to be totally realistic about the difficulties and challenges that would present. I am afraid I have to say from this Dispatch Box that at the moment that lies very far away, almost in the dream category of where one could go if the present twin-track strategy, which we are determined to pursue, did not succeed.

The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, spoke about a different kind of win-win strategy. These are ideas that must be looked at seriously and kept on the table, but the main strategy that we are sticking to at the moment is intense pressure on Iran to bring it to the table, which is now on its way to being step one. The step beyond that is to get it to come clean on its nuclear activities at present and its nuclear military aspirations and to deter it from them.

The third major category of discussion in the debate was to do with the Middle East peace process for Palestine and Israel. We all quote to each other the adage that everything in the Middle East is connected to everything else. Clearly, the peace process and some kind of progress on it, if we can discern any, if there is any hope at all, is connected with the Iran situation, the Lebanon situation and the entire balance of activity and dangers throughout the Middle East.

Let me turn to the MEPP and try to answer some of the questions that were raised by a range of noble Lords. I will not name them all. We are aware that Fatah and Hamas have signed an agreement that President Abbas will become Prime Minister. It is too early to make a detailed assessment of these developments. We will continue to follow the situation on Palestinian reconciliation very closely. Any technocratic Government should be composed of figures who are committed to the principles set by Mahmoud Abbas in Cairo in May last year, who uphold the principle of non-violence, are committed to a negotiated two-state solution and accept the previous agreements of the PLA. We have made it consistently clear that we will engage any Palestinian Government who show through their words and actions that they are committed to the above principles.

We welcome the effort to hold Palestinian elections this year. It will be very important that all sides work to ensure that conditions are in place for the holding of free and fair elections. I know there have been reports that Hamas has shifted its emphasis. Our policy is clear: it must renounce violence, recognise Israel and accept previously signed agreements. Hamas must make credible movement towards these conditions, which remain the benchmark by which its intentions will be judged. That is what we want to make clear on that situation.

We are thankful that the Egyptians have brokered a ceasefire in the recent period of very high tensions. One should not forget that a vast range of missiles, some of very high technical capability, have been rained on Israel by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other organisations. Luckily, the Iron Dome technology of anti-missile defence by Israel seems to have prevented 90 per cent of them reaching their targets. Nevertheless, it is obviously intolerable from Israel’s point of view that that should be the challenge. Of course, it will also be said that Israel has applied its force the other way. There is always a balance and there are always two sides to these arguments. It is impossible to say anything that does not slide one way or another.

[Baroness Tonge]

I thank the Minister for giving way but I must point out—I hope that he agrees—that the raining of missiles on southern Israel from Gaza always follows a targeted assassination by the Israeli Air Force. He may not have heard—but I certainly did and I can send him a transcript—the BBC World Service interviewing a teacher in southern Israel who confirmed that fact and said that they always knew when missiles were going to come over because it was always after a targeted assassination.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I will not go further into the argument of where it stands. There is of course an earlier riposte to that. Perhaps for once I could just stand on the observation, with which I hope my noble friend would agree, that—I think that the words of Mr Netanyahu were to this effect—if there is quietness on one side, there will be quietness on the other side. There were targeted assassinations; there are constant threats of the elimination of Israel; there are these ripostes by rockets; and there is the position of Hamas, which has stood aside from some of these rocket attacks. All these are pieces of the jigsaw. I will not go further in the judgment because, wherever one stands, it offends one side or the other.

I should say a word about Palestine’s membership of the United Nations. The UK considers that Palestine largely fulfils the criteria for UN membership. We will not vote against the application because of the progress that the Palestinian leadership has made towards meeting the criteria but nor can we vote for it while our primary objective remains the return to negotiations. Currently, there is no proposal for a UN General Assembly resolution. If President Abbas returns to the General Assembly, the UK will use its vote in a way that makes a return to negotiations more rather than less likely. That is where we stand in answer to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. Those are the three major issues, although they are not by any means the only issues that have been discussed throughout this very lively debate.

The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, is certainly owed a comment on Bahrain. He asked about the unconditional release of Abdulhadi al-Khawaja and other leading activists. We are working with the Danish Government and the EU on this case. We and our EU partners are urging the Bahraini authorities to deal with the cases of all those currently in prison quickly and transparently. As to whether we will ask the Bahrainis to start negotiations with victims on compensation et cetera, we understand that the Bahraini authorities are discussing compensation for those affected by the unrest during the year. My colleague, Alistair Burt, has urged reconciliation and has been immensely active in this field. We have also urged the Bahraini authorities to deal with all the remaining cases of those in prison quickly and transparently. We remain convinced that meaningful dialogue between the Government and the Opposition is the best way forward for Bahrain to return it to the stability that it deserves. Will we urge the regime to allow freedom of expression, without which reform is not possible? My answer is that the United Kingdom supports freedom of speech and expression in all countries and we have made this clear to the Bahraini authorities.

I do not expect these answers fully to satisfy those who are concerned about what has been happening in Bahrain, but we believe that progress is being made. There is evidence of a serious commitment to dialogue and we will continue to work on that. We are far from satisfied or in agreement with everything that has been done or is being done, but we believe that the trend is positive and we will keep pressing.

In a fascinating contribution, the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, asked among many other things about the Chilcot inquiry. The inquiry has advised the Government that it will need at least until the summer of 2012 to complete its report and be ready for publication. The noble Lord, Lord Bew, asked two questions of great profundity and said that I had not mentioned Turkey and the European Union. I had not because there are so many other things to mention and I did not think that we could get into that aspect. It remains our view that Turkey’s application to membership of the European Union makes sense for the future, but obviously it is up to Turkey. If it decides in its repositioning in the new Middle East that membership is no longer a priority, that is for the Turkish Government.

The noble Lord also asked me the great and fundamental question: is the whole of the process that we are discussing going to weaken or strengthen moves towards democracy in the future? The honest answer is that we hope that it will. We are optimistic and we believe in the long term. Many countries may have to go through Islamic phases, but this will take us in the right direction. Even so, there will be many problems along the way.

The noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, told us about the Yemen and her rather frightening experiences there, which we read about in the papers. We are extremely grateful to her for the role that she has played and for her words about the British and other ambassadors. Indeed, I made some comments in my opening speech on that point. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked me a string of questions, which I have not had time to answer in full. He asked about the role of DfID and the work that we are doing. The department is putting enormous effort into the Arab partnership, including an economic facility to support inclusive, sustainable economic growth, focusing primarily on Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan and Libya.

We cannot possibly predict what the political landscape in the region will look like even one year from now. One certainty is that we need the major nations to work in concert, which means that somehow we have to see more co-operation from Russia and China to achieve real progress. Of course my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has been working day and night with his colleagues on trying to move towards the UN resolution that Russia may approve. We hope that China may then follow. Positive Russian assistance on Syria is essential and we must have a better contribution from that great country.

I believe that the people of the region have made absolutely clear their desire for respect for their own nations and for themselves, and for a stronger voice in their future. Many of them have been extraordinarily bold and brave in their actions, almost unbelievably so. Now we must show the same boldness by remaining positive, constructive and ready to assist, without interference, to help the onward march of change towards what we hope will be better times for the region and its remarkable people.