East Jerusalem and the West Bank

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I was not explicit because, as the noble Baroness will know—she is better equipped than most of us in these sorts of areas—what one often gets when making representations that are not welcome to the recipients is a shrug of the shoulders and a polite nodding of the head but no action. I am afraid that the most visible action is of the opposite kind—buildings have continued to be demolished, which gives rise to a question about the prospects for progress.

No one can disguise the fact that most of the responsible world—the Arab world, the western world, the European Union, the United States, the UN—believes that the present fluidity and turmoil in the region provides an opportunity for Israel and a Palestine that we hope is moving towards a united Government, although it is not there yet, to start serious negotiations. That is what we want, but it has to be said that this has appeared not to be the opinion of the Israeli authorities at the moment. Their inclination appears to be just to hunker down and hope that something else will turn up.

It is not a situation in which we are optimistic. None the less, we think that continual pressure and the continuing presentation of the realities of the destructive path on which an Israel that refused to negotiate would set itself will eventually move things, but I cannot pretend that it will happen tomorrow morning.

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, my noble friend made much of the fact that the Minister declared that the settlements were illegal under international law, but is my noble friend aware that if the Minister had gone further and said that there might therefore be a case for materials produced in those settlements to be boycotted, he would be in breach of the new anti-boycott law which the Knesset introduced on 11 July? What is Her Majesty's Government’s response to the introduction of that law? Does my noble friend agree that it seriously undermines not only freedom of speech in Israel but even Israel’s credentials as an open, free and democratic society?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I myself—and I think this would be a government view—do not very much like the shape of the boycott law, which seems to intrude very greatly on the freedom even of speech about what can be traded and developed in the relevant areas. However, I understand that the matter will come before the Israeli Supreme Court and has been challenged, so maybe it is premature to make final judgments on it. Generally, we think that boycotts are not the way forward—they impede the sensible development of trade—and we should perhaps not forget that, although much of what I have had to say is gloomy, trade and activity, not in Jerusalem but elsewhere on the West Bank, are developing really rather well, and many people, including in your Lordships' House, are well aware of some of the remarkable enterprises that are springing up in places such as Ramallah and elsewhere.