Israel: Trade

Lord Bew Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Austin, for securing this debate. I express my agreement with the themes of his speech and those of many other speakers this afternoon. I welcome the Minister to his new position.

I declare the interest that I was for more than 10 years the chairman of the Anglo-Israel Association. En passant, in those 10 years I would frequently, as a strong supporter of and much engaged in the Good Friday agreement, argue with Israeli audiences and say, “You ought to be careful. Let’s not assume that Hamas are as fundamentalist as they appear to be. After all, it turned out the IRA weren’t”. After 7 October, that argument inevitably falls on stony ground. I have made that argument for 10 years but it can no longer be sustained. That is the tragedy of the position we are now in: Israel has no alternative but to fight a many-sided war in which it cannot afford to end up appearing as a weak horse, to use Osama bin Laden’s dictum. I am afraid I do not think our Government are fully facing up to that brutal and unfortunate reality.

When I first came to this House in the summer of 2007, the boycott movement was just about getting going and there was a debate covering many of the same themes that we have covered today. I looked at it again in preparation for this debate, and the one thing I would say is that those who spoke in favour of Israel, including the importance of scientific co-operation, the medical achievements of Israel and so on—there were many distinguished academics who spoke—actually understated their case. As I look back on it now, the case is much stronger. The fact is that Israel is now a world leader in medical and paramedical research, and it is tremendously important to acknowledge that. Many speeches have made all the points. It is not just a question, as the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, says, of the thousands of people in England who owe their jobs to Israeli investment; there are quite lot of people walking around now who owe their lives to Israeli achievement in the medical and scientific spheres. As I say, those who defended Israel 18 or 19 years ago in this House understated the case that we made for the importance of collaboration with Israel in medical and scientific matters.

The noble Lord, Lord Austin, referred to the great work in this area of our ambassador in Israel, Simon Walters. I agree, and I am rather proud that Simon Walters comes from exactly the same part of the world that I do. I take a certain chauvinistic pride in that.

I have one final point. The Royal College of Defence Studies was raised. For many years I lectured there, and I was happy to do so. As has been rightly said, many of the soldiers I spoke to did not come from the most liberal, democratic countries in the world, but I still did it and I still think it was the right thing to do. I have had to stop now as a consequence of that decision, which is just astounding and very unfortunate. It is a difficult matter for the Minister to comment on, but I hope he realises that many of us are very unhappy with that particular decision.