Israel and Palestine

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I wish I could echo the optimism of the noble Lord, Lord Austin, but sadly I cannot. As we have heard this evening, instead of a more benign security environment in the Middle East, the opposite is true. Today’s environment might more accurately be termed a “new regional disorder”, underwritten by an “arc of instability” in the Middle East with the growing influence of Iran.

The landscape against which the Arab-Israeli conflict is viewed appears increasingly volatile and turbulent, contoured by myriad examples of violence and escalating conflicts which, over the past year, are no longer headline news here. No matter their origin, these conflicts can engulf us all, thanks to the pace of a rapidly globalising world. This is dangerous because it takes our eye off the escalation of tension and violence in the region at a time when it should be a top international priority, not one in the foreign policy shadows of the Ukraine conflict.

The multiplicity of new and continuing threats at times appears overwhelming: terrorism, conflict, insurgency. In this bleak and dystopian world, the liberal order, backed by strong, independent legal institutions, which are under question in Israel, and the democratic free-market prescriptions of the Washington consensus, are being challenged as never before—not least where a right-wing coalition with ultranationalists is seated in government against a background of increasing violence and a threat of a further Palestinian intifada.

While the eyes of the world are elsewhere, it is welcome that Israel has altered its settlement programme with a temporary cessation. At the same time, regrettably, more extremists are moving into Gaza and the West Bank, stoking tensions and trouble for the future. As the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, has indicated—if I can put his sentiments into my words—the running sore is festering badly and 2023 is likely to see the contagion erupt again. Against that backcloth, now is the time to step up our involvement, as many noble Lords have said, and seek to clear the political debris from the pathways to the two-state solution which, in my view, is in no way dead. It cannot die; it is the lifeline to peace.

I have only one question to put to the Minister, which is in the context of children. What more can the government do to support the UN’s efforts to help children, who pay the highest price as the violence escalates? Will he agree to increase our support both financially and in terms of qualified personnel to help the impacted children with psychosocial services, starting with the humanitarian family centres across the Gaza Strip, but encompassing all children in the region who have been victims of the horrors of violence?