Occupied Palestinian Territories: Israeli Settlements

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I should like to thank the Backbench Business Committee for scheduling this debate. I visited the west bank and Jerusalem in January, and I should like to draw the House’s attention to what will soon appear in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: the support of the Britain Palestine Communication Centre, the President’s office and the Palestinian Mission. Every Palestinian we met—Palestinian Authority members, elected city leaders, political activists and young people—subscribed to the two-state solution and wanted help in ensuring that it is achieved. I saw, as did other colleagues, the settlements marching across the hills over expropriated land, usually illegally. I saw the diverted roads, which Palestinians are not allowed to use, and I saw the march of the fence and the wall through old fields. I saw the occupation and destruction of the old city of Hebron, and the closed businesses there. Yes, the settlements are the issue of today, but if we want to address stone throwing and other violence by Palestinian children, we need only to look at the daily incidents of brutalisation to which they and their families have been subjected for decades.

We visited the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which provided us with accurate, factual information showing that 43% of the west bank is out of bounds to Palestinians. Its maps show a Swiss cheese of disjointed areas of Palestinian land, with the Palestinians effectively excluded from the rest, even if they have historical ownership over it. Hours after meeting our Prime Minister recently, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu returned to Israel to vote on a law that allows the Israeli state to seize land privately owned by Palestinians on the west bank and to grant Jewish settlements exclusive use of the properties there. The decision on 24 January did indeed order 40 or 50 families to be moved from the Amona outpost, but in the same week, approval was given for 2,500 new dwellings on the west bank and 566 new settlement houses in East Jerusalem, taking over thousands of acres of Palestinian land.

The recent legislation imposed Israeli law on Palestinian inhabitants of the west bank, which is not sovereign Israeli territory. The Palestinians living there are not citizens of Israel and do not have the right to vote, but the Israelis living there do. Israeli civil law applies to settlers, affording them all sorts of legal protections, rights and benefits not enjoyed by their Palestinian neighbours, who are subject to Israeli military law. Palestinians should not be made to go through the indignity of negotiating over territory that should be theirs in a future state. This should be an international negotiation in which our Government should play a major part.

Changes in US Immigration Policy

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I also want to thank the right hon. and hon. Members who have secured this debate this evening.

Speakers at Hounslow’s civic commemoration of the holocaust this morning reminded us of the importance of compassion and refuge in the face of hate. Council leader Councillor Steve Curran celebrated the diversity of the people in that room—people from all backgrounds from all over the world—and made the link between Hounslow welcoming people in the room and all the people who live in Hounslow now from all over the world. They have included Sir Mo Farah, who arrived and was welcomed in Hounslow aged eight in about 1990.

We also heard from Susie Barnett, who was born in 1938 in Hamburg. She told us of her family’s moving and incredible story, of fleeing the hate and discrimination of Nazi Germany at the end of 1930s and arriving separately in the UK as refugees. That family story of personal relationships and tragedy brought home to us the link between world events and what happens to families and ordinary people in these circumstances.

After the service this morning, I thanked Susie for her moving story and was able to tell her about the petition demanding that the invitation to President Trump be withdrawn. I told her that while she was speaking the tally on that petition tipped over the 1 million mark. She said, “Right, when I get home this afternoon, I am going to sign it.” That petition is still being signed at the rate of 10 signatures every second, and by the end of this evening the figure could hit 1.5 million.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) referred to the rules on movement and the safety of refugees that emerged from the ashes of world war two. The President of the United States is trying to rewrite these rules. He is fuelling fears, and a local Muslim activist phoned me this morning worrying about the implications of the feelings that President Trump is spreading in the US: what will that mean for the Muslim community here in the UK and in Hounslow?

The Executive order was directed at Muslims and at refugees, but the President is also effectively demonising many others—Mexicans, women, refugees from all over the world and now, we hear today, green activists, who among other things are trying to save the American bald eagle, symbol of the United States. We have to stand up against this prejudice, before it leads to mass injustice.

I shall finish with a quote from Martin Luther King, written when he was in jail:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. During this Parliament, we mark a series of events and decisions that took place during and after world war one, including the Balfour declaration, the then Foreign Secretary’s letter to the leader of the British Jewish community, Lord Rothschild. We are proud of the role that Britain played in supporting the birth of the state of Israel, but the incompletion of the Oslo accords reminds us that there is still work to do to honour the declaration in full. But, yes, we will mark the Balfour declaration anniversary this year.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

20. The only way truly to de-escalate tensions is through the restarting of meaningful peace talks. What are the UK Government doing to support this aim?

[Mr Ellwood]

We continue to press both sides to come together. John Kerry said not long ago that the middle east peace process must not become a tired old slogan or some throwaway phrase we use to appease our consciences. We need to get both sides back to the table. That is what the Palestinian and Israeli people want.