Syria and the Middle East

Lord Judd Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, it is always good to hear the noble Lord, Lord Bates, in our debates. He brings a real sense of deep humanitarian commitment, of learning and of analysis informed by human reality. Those are great assets in our deliberations, for which all sides of the House should be grateful.

At the end of last week, I was in Israel and Jordan, where I had a wide range of very interesting conversations. As I listened to the noble Baroness introducing the debate, I thought that what she was saying related very well to the preoccupations in those conversations. However, what was telling during the few days that I was in that part of the world was the almost total preoccupation with Egypt. I think that this House must take what is happening in Egypt extremely seriously. If what is happening there deteriorates and things spiral still further out of control, it is not impossible that that will put a different perspective on our current preoccupations, because we will be absolutely consumed with the implications of what is taking place. Clearly, the issue is highly complex and it affects the stability of the whole region.

I was challenged by the very interesting contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown. I think that in future I shall refer to it as the “Ashdown analysis”. That, too, has to be taken very seriously. What is really going on and what really is the strategic situation in which we are caught up? It is worth looking at some illustrations of that: the pressure on Turkey and how that interplays with domestic politics within Turkey; the involvement, to which the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, referred, of Iran, and the game that Iran is probably playing; the destabilisation, again, of Lebanon—just in the past 10 days there have been serious casualties in northern Lebanon, with the possibility of another collapse of order in Lebanon—and tension on the border with Israel.

A new factor is the expansionist ambitions of Hamas, which has been thwarted in its attempts to become part of the Middle East peace process and to have a presence in the deliberations on the future of that particular Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In my view, that has strengthened the militant elements within Hamas, which are leading it into dangerous expansionist experiments.

Only a few weeks ago there were great celebrations in the Foreign Office at the conclusion of the arms trade treaty. This was seen as a triumph of bipartisan, consistent work by a lot of officials and Ministers, who had brought about a satisfactory solution. However, I found it quite extraordinary that virtually at the same time the conversation was beginning to develop about the possibility of sending arms to the rebels in Syria. I just could not reconcile such a proposal with all the satisfaction that had been taken in concluding the arms trade treaty. Obviously, we all know that weapons are very dangerous, and central to that treaty is that weapons in the wrong hands are very dangerous indeed. Therefore, their use is a consideration that must always be borne in mind in relation to the export of arms. It is important to ask in whose hands the arms will finally end up, how they will be applied and what the objectives are of the people into whose hands they may ultimately land. Also central to the arms trade treaty is a preoccupation with human rights. How could we talk about exporting arms to people who—although obviously not on the scale of the Syrian Government—are too involved in the crude abuse of human rights? I have never heard those two contrary elements of our situation reconciled to my satisfaction, and I wonder whether we can hear more about that before the debate ends.

I want to say a word or two about humanitarian assistance. The first point to make is that humanitarian agencies in this country are desperate to get access to all parts of Syria and are very anxious that the Government should pursue this with all possible vigour, not least in the Security Council in trying to bring the Russians on board, at least on this. Everyone—rebels and government—should be pressurising all parties to the conflict to make access by humanitarian agencies a possibility. Of course, there is a role for the UN Security Council in that context. Great credit should be given to the British Government for what they have done and the lead they have given, but there is still a tremendous amount to be done in getting the world to face its responsibility of fulfilling the pledges that it has given. It is cruelly cynical to be at conferences at which great amounts of assistance are pledged but do not materialise. The current UN appeal is to last for only for six months, and in June only 28% of the $5.2 billion needed had been subscribed.

In Syria, 6.8 million men, women and children are in desperate need of assistance. Since the conflict erupted, more than 1.5 million people have fled to neighbouring countries. One has only to think of Jordan, where I was last week. There is a huge burden on Jordan. In one camp alone, the Zaatari refugee camp, there are 150,000 newly arrived Syrians. That is on top of the 550,000 refugees from Syria in Jordan as a whole and the 600,000 Syrians who were already living in Jordan. If one needed an illustration of the destabilisation within the Ashdown analysis, as part of the Ashdown scenario being played out, we should think of that.

We like to feel that whatever our profound reservations about human rights in Jordan, it is a relatively stable country. But for how long will Jordan remain stable? Some have estimated that within a very short number of years, 25% of the population of Jordan will be refugees. How does one sustain stability and security in that context? Perhaps I may add that it also puts our own preoccupations about the movement of people, immigration and refugees in a very different light when one sees what the Jordanian people are absorbing and carrying, the burden on them and the effect on their economy and well-being.

All this makes a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian issue more urgent than ever, and not less. I absolutely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bates, that lasting, enduring solutions have to belong to the people in whose name they are being reached. They cannot be imposed on the people because they would not last. A settlement has to be rooted in a conviction across a wide cross-section of the population that it is something that they want and believe in. Last week, I had conversations with the Speaker of the Knesset, Mr Edelstein, and others. I also had a very good conversation with President Abbas of the Palestinians.

I do not belong to the ranks of those who despair of any movement in the situation. Tantalisingly, there is some chance of progress but if there is to be progress one thing is absolutely clear. We have to increase the number of Palestinians and Israelis being exposed to each other not as a problem, as analysis or in a stigmatised sort of way, but as people who are encountering each other, who are hearing each other’s perspectives and sharing each other’s agonies and professionalism. At a very interesting conference in which noble Lords were involved, there were hydrologists from both communities. They were fascinated by the work that they talked about together. That is essential because only in that way will we create the space around the negotiators for them to become more flexible and imaginative. I was very glad to hear that among the Knesset and the Palestinian leadership there was an understanding that this was a useful thing to do. I was there as chairman of the IPU’s Middle East committee and I hope that this is a matter on which the IPU may be able to help.