United Nations General Assembly 2018: IRC Report

Lord Stone of Blackheath Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stone of Blackheath (Lab)]

My Lords, in the report Mr Hochschild draws attention to areas of particular concern. He specifically mentions Israel-Palestine, where the peace process is “suffering a major setback”. Much of my work is in the Middle East and from 50 years’ experience I can see now that, as indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, unity work must be conducted vertically at three levels of relationships: at country level, between communities, and then between individuals within communities. Without progress and cohesion at all three levels, we will remain stuck in the paradigm whereby we are repeating the same old processes that we have seen since the 1990s.

I would like to share some examples of initiatives and projects covering these three levels that I visited last month, and which need to be aligned with the work of a reformed UN. Starting at country level, the Alliance for Middle East Peace—ALLMEP—is the largest and fastest-growing network of Israeli and Palestinian peace and co-operation groups. Its campaign is to create an international fund for Israeli-Palestinian peace, using the same plan as the transformative fund for Ireland set up 10 years before the Irish peace process took bite. It takes a generational approach. It is creating a $200-million-a-year fund, endorsed by the UK earlier this year, and $50 million has already been pledged by the US Senate. It will scale investment in peace, focusing on international actors, through a single mechanism so that we can shape generations on each side of the green line who in the short term have become resilient to the violence and extremism, but who over the longer term deserve support towards genuine peace between both peoples.

After 1945, Her Majesty’s Government played an integral part in establishing the UN to prevent wars between countries. This system and organisation is now stretched in dealing with the modern crisis that is wars within nations such as Syria and other Middle East countries, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Myanmar.

Search for Common Ground is a great organisation which I came across in Israel and which is helping to resolve conflicts there. During the last year, in the DRC, old grievances boiled over in the Tanganyika province between Pygmies from an ethnic Twa group and the Luba, a Bantu group. Villages were burned. Women and children were tortured and more than half a million people fled their homes. It remains one of the most underreported crises yet, as negotiations broke down and the United Nations struggled to keep peace, Pygmy and Bantu youth stepped forward, with Search for Common Ground’s help. Village by village, they are setting up committees, with members from both ethnic groups, meeting with the militia commanders and local leaders to prevent attacks and clearing a way for displaced people to return home.

In the crisis in Yemen, Search for Common Ground is fanning out throughout the country, helping humanitarian workers negotiate access to communities in need. As Her Majesty’s Government craft their position at the UN, they should ensure that these reforms help widen and deepen partnerships with these international and local non-governmental peacebuilding organisations.

However, all this work should start with individuals. Here, I mention the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Mindfulness. On the Parliamentary Estate, there are now 400 individuals—Lords, MPs and staff—who have completed an eight-week course on mindfulness. Mindfulness techniques are, with our help, now in another 13 Parliaments across the world. There are many testaments as to how mindfulness has allowed people in Parliament to work with greater compassion, understanding and patience. Compassionate mindfulness allows me, in fraught situations in the Middle East, to listen to others who have completely different histories and cultures and to understand and accept that their narrative is their truth, so that we can develop together projects with win-win solutions.

Last week, Ben Avrahami, an adviser to the Mayor of Jerusalem, took me on a visit to show how, despite media reports to the contrary, Palestinians and Israelis, Muslims, Jews and Christians in east Jerusalem are working together for a better future. I met people on the street in different neighbourhoods who felt they were benefiting from co-operating together. I was impressed by the quality and commitment of Ramadan Dawash, a Palestinian from east Jerusalem, who will stand at the election next month for a seat on the municipality of Jerusalem. I hope the city will benefit from the perspective and input of him and others like him. In Ariel, Israel Twito, the founder of a settlement factory called Twitoplast, is employing Palestinians, Israelis and Russian immigrants. He is providing them with good pay and conditions, health services and education at all levels, and everyone is thriving. All employees are encouraged to progress according to their merit without being obstructed by their nationality. This could become a win-win situation as it was at SodaStream and PepsiCo.

Listening mindfully to each of the people I met on these visits allowed me to see how people with mutual respect could find ways to help each other. Perhaps Her Majesty’s Government would like to offer our experience in facilitating mindfulness techniques and skills to people in the UN.

The world is more interconnected than ever—vertically by individual, community and country, and horizontally across the globe. The UN should, therefore, continue to reform itself. It should incorporate mindfulness and compassion in its training of its people, work in communities with the best NGOs, such as Search for Common Ground, and build alliances with organisations such as the Alliance for Middle East Peace across countries. We in the United Kingdom have a long experience of such techniques and organisations. Her Majesty’s Government would do well to influence the UN in its reform to move towards a greater vertical synergy to achieve its objectives.