Israel/Gaza

Lord Mendelsohn Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mendelsohn (Lab)]

My Lords, I refer to my register of interests. I am a director of the UK Abraham Accords Group, I am involved on the boards of companies which have staff and premises in Israel, and I am a board member of a cancer charity and many other organisations.

It is impossible not to describe what has been going on as just simply heartbreaking. I thank the Minister for his absolutely outstanding speech, for the resolve and clarity that he shows and that the Government have shown, for their work in the region and for their full engagement. This is all deeply important. I thank the leader of my party for his clarity and the Front Bench for demonstrating it as well. I am truly humbled to be in this Chamber when we have had such an important and constructive debate with so many significant and thoughtful contributions. I join my voice with those calling for the immediate and unconditional release of the hostages as quickly as possible.

I was in Israel when the rockets started hitting and when the land incursion took place. In fact, I was woken up by my phone which I had set to one of the alerts which tell you if rockets come over. I had it on silent, but it just did not stop vibrating. It woke me at 7 am; my wife had been up since 6.30 am. It was immediately apparently that this was something very, very different. The reason I mention this is that I have kept it vibrating still every day. Every single day I get a reminder of the condition of rockets being fired into Israel and the murderous intent to kill as many people as possible, which has been stopped only by some advanced technology. These happen constantly, and it was almost prescient that just before we started this debate, the most enormous amount of rockets were fired on Israel, including one in an area that I was staying in when I was there on Saturday, which would have given me 90 seconds to get to a bomb shelter.

That issue is still constant. It is also the case that this afternoon, like every day for at least the last 10 days, there have been major incursions with rockets and other things from the northern border. One should not forget the precarious situation and the threats that Israel faces in general, including the attack from Yemen. This is more than just the issue of Gaza. This is what Hamas has wrought: a major form of instability.

I will just reference one other thing, which is that I have always wanted to be involved in the pursuit of peace. I have made much of my time, resources and other things available to the disposal of any initiative that tries to work towards peace, like many in this House. I have never been anything more than a minor supporter in that role. I cannot profess to any particularly significant achievement or role, but I was certainly involved in trying to do as much as we could with the Gaza withdrawal. When it was first mooted in 2004, it was supported widely and overwhelmingly in Israel, especially after the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004. There were initiatives here. In fact, we had an Israeli and Palestinian initiative, supported by the Government here, that helped to build some of the conditions to make that work. I worked with a number of people in the wider community on trying to make sure that, when Israel withdrew, there was significant building. The Emirati companies were very keen to invest in that. One of those that did go over to invest a huge amount was chased out of Gaza. We have led to this terrible succession of things that we all know of so well, leading to Hamas’s takeover in 2007, which of course came after the abduction of Gilad Shalit. One should remember that Hamas has always been trying to undermine that situation.

So where have we ended up with that deep desire to create peace? It has trapped Israel in military strikes, economic pressures and isolation as the only strategy to try and deal with Gaza. Gaza has not had the economic success or benefits linked to peace, nor the security that it would have wished for. We have ended up in a situation which is far worse. For those of us who always try the march towards peace, the steps back that can be taken are very severe, and we must consider that. Of course, there is no accident, in my view, in the timing of why these events took place. It was because we were making more progress than we have ever done in last few years on the diplomatic side with the Saudi initiative.

We must address the inescapable point that, for as long as Hamas remains a force, the cause of peace will be the profound casualty. Hamas in Gaza is like having ISIS on your border. It has had a destructive legacy on peace from Oslo: suicide bombers, child soldiers—it does not matter what it is, Hamas has always been the great underminer. Our core mistake has been to believe that a Hamas presence is possible and consistent with any peace initiative. It is not. We must address it. We must address the malign influence of Iran which has emboldened them all. We must urge the regional actors who are part of the solution to do more, and for Qatar to do more to try and put pressure, not just on the hostage situation, but for Hamas to be more engaged.

The central unarguable point is that Hamas is the problem, and everyone has to choose which side they are on: peace or conflict. People must understand that Hamas is not the Palestinians. Those who argue in the media, at demonstrations or elsewhere, who provide succour or support for Hamas, its methods or policies, who justify or explain away its actions or even recite or chant the politics and phrases from its hateful charter do nothing for peace. I fear the reality is we have to accept that when we talk about a horizon for peace, after the war, or commitments to two states, all of which I profoundly agree with, it is unlikely to be feasible unless Hamas can be reduced to the husk that ISIS is. We need the right coalition of willing partners to make that happen.

Abraham Accords

Lord Mendelsohn Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Mendelsohn (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a board member of the UK Abraham Accords Group and as one of the co-chairs of the All-Party Group on the Abraham Accords. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Polak, for his excellent speech and for giving us the opportunity to debate this. His personal leadership and role in developing our country’s relations with that region is well known to all and we thank him for that. In particular, he—I would say “my noble friend”—has been a great colleague and, on many occasions, a great servant for this country. I also associate myself with the words that he said about the situation in Morocco. A terrible tragedy has been unfolding there, and I too extend sympathy to its people. Whatever we can do to help them would be most welcome. I am sure that the Minister will touch on that in his comments.

The Question we have here is to look at the Abraham accords and how we should view them. I think we have to consider them as one of the single most transformational moments in the Middle East. That is not to say that in and of itself, that moment was everything. We have to acknowledge that the region has changed substantially in the relations between countries due to different factors. For those who remember the work on the development reports that the United Nations was doing in the early 1990s, there has been a whole series of changes, not least in the security situation. We have to say that the Abraham accords are set within the context of a changing region—which is taking a very different view about what people can do and how they can define their futures. That includes the visionary leadership in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which are intent on changing the course of their nations’ participation in society.

These are factors that we have to consider, so the question is then: why it is important to the UK? It is fairly obvious, not least for anyone who has read our own review of our strategy on foreign and defence policy. We want to be involved at the real heart of shaping the international order of the future. We have vital security interests, which are being challenged all the time, and of course our competitive advantage is based around where the science and technology of the future will go. This region is really coming on in leaps and bounds in participation, and the collaboration between countries is immense.

The next question is: what should we do? The answer is, of course, to fully engage. The point about the Negev forum, which is in a sense the diplomatic and economic grunt-work of this process, is that it is absolutely vital for us to engage properly. The Americans sent 40 people from across government to the previous one. It is not about just one issue or the Foreign Office; it touches on every single part. We in the UK Abraham Accords Group are going to try to do our part, ably led by the ex-Minister Liam Fox, who is well known to people in this House. We also have Ruth Paris on the international advisory board and, most importantly, it is formally and strongly sponsored by the ambassadors of Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. However, I really hope that the Minister will agree that the UK could consider engaging with it much more as a forum, an opportunity and as a strategic interest for our country. That is the most important and vital step we need to take.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Mendelsohn Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mendelsohn (Lab)]

My Lords, the UK Government played an important role in the discussions with Iran which first led to the JCPOA and today are part of an important negotiation being led by the United States for a new treaty. There are many voices pressing caution. I draw particular attention to an article in March’s edition of Foreign Policy by Hussein Agha, one of the most astute and brilliant commentators on the region and an active and widely respected peace negotiator. His article is a brutal assessment of where we could be heading. He writes, under the headline, “The United States’ Clueless Diplomacy Won’t Stop a Nuclear Iran”, that a deal could lead to the worst of both worlds. It will not derail the regime’s nuclear ambitions and will strengthen the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Today is not 2015, and the deal of 2015 was achieved through wider considerations, but its work was unfinished. Today Iran’s capacity is very significantly advanced and it is a lesson, if ever we needed it, that it is not just about signing agreements but about ensuring that provisions are implemented and the consequences properly managed. Many felt able to justify the 2015 accord as some totemic struggle for power in Iran between extremists and moderates, or between fundamentalists and reformers. However, as Agha notes, the real struggle has been between the revolutionary guard and the official state and its military.

The revolutionary guard was not present at the 2015 talks and did not like the deal. As Agha concludes, it is unequivocally in control now, which is why the issue about its proscription is so important—a position the US should not weaken and one in which other countries should join, including the UK. We have seen its role in creating parallel institutions around the region and supporting destabilisation, which has only gained pace since the Afghan withdrawal. It is not just about how it has increased popular mobilisation forces in Iraq, or various militias in Syria, and not just about Hezbollah in Lebanon, whose rule has destroyed and crippled the country and whose electoral setbacks still mean that it will exert much destructive influence. It is not just about its increased activity and support for Hamas and Islamic jihad in the Palestinian territories, setting loose terrorism in Israel to undermine the Palestinian Authority and push further away, as if it was not far away already, any opportunity to re-engage in any form of peace process. Its influence with the Houthis in Yemen continually undermines the fragile ceasefire.

Agreements work when the politics in which they are embedded is right. This was a flaw in 2015, and we must avoid it with any new agreement. Is it really possible today to say that the new agreement can be trusted when it is underpinned by Russia acting as guarantor and the custodian of billions of dollars for Iran’s domestic nuclear development? May I seek the assurance of the Minister that the agreement ensures that our vital security and strategic interests and our work for stability in the wider region are properly reflected in what we are prepared to sign up to?

I applaud the Government’s strong stance on Ukraine. The Russian invasion and brutal war on the Ukrainian people are not just appalling but will have huge implications for years to come. As the co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on War Crimes, I welcome the Government’s pledge that those responsible for war crimes in Ukraine are held to account. I am pleased that we have provided support for such investigations. I would be very grateful if the Minister could kindly agree to keep the House updated on what our resource commitment is and what role we are playing in this matter. I appreciate that it is in the nature of these issues that responsibility is shared across the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice.

We have in this Parliament always taken seriously the matter of war criminals evading justice, whether here or abroad. However, recent experience raises concerns and the group has been very worried about what we are committed to and whether our deeds properly reflect our words. In looking at a number of the cases that have been raised in the UK, we can conclude that we are at risk here of becoming a safe haven, and we do not have the capacity to play an important international role.

To illustrate the point, in the UK today there are five suspects believed to have taken part in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda. In 2015 and 2017, a British district judge in the High Court ruled that, even though the evidence was compelling, none could be sent back to Rwanda because such action could breach their human rights on the grounds that the suspects would not receive a fair trial. We undertook to take on this responsibility. The resources allocated to Ukraine, even if it is one person, dwarf those allocated in pursuit of the Rwandan investigations, which in truth are no more than a percentage allocation of one member of a small wider team in the Metropolitan Police and the CPS. Many issues have been raised about the difficulties, but it has not stopped other countries, such as the US, Canada, France, Belgium, Germany and Sweden, helping, including during the pandemic. We in the group have faced an unwillingness to provide information, a lack of transparency and refusals to meet. We can conclude only that our investigative capacity is intentionally depleted, and that poor resourcing reflects poor commitment. If we are a country that takes war crimes seriously, as we have done in the past with Nazi war criminals and say we are doing in the Ukraine today, we need to put that right. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm his willingness to take this matter back to his colleagues, assure us of a meeting and assure us that we will have the proper commitment and capacity to meet our commitments on this matter.

International Soft Power Strategy: Role of BBC

Lord Mendelsohn Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I have already partially answered the question on funding. However, let me reassure the noble Baroness that we remain committed to the BBC, as has been demonstrated by our support for the 12 new language services over the period from 2016 to 2020.

[Lord Mendelsohn (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the Government’s welcome and important funding of the World Service beyond the licence fee has more than achieved its objectives with a greater number of language services, double-digit audience growth and ever-higher trust ratings. Does the Minister accept that this unique world-leading asset for the UK is the right vehicle for further and larger support to achieve our vital national interest of combating disinformation and the use by hostile actors of dishonesty to undermine the stability of democracies?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I fully recognise what the noble Lord has said about the important role that the BBC World Service plays, for the very reasons that he says.