Occupied Palestinian Territories

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 24th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones), who is an expert in these matters, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) for securing this debate, which I think he first secured back in March. Time has moved on, but this is perhaps even more relevant now, so I thank the Backbench Business Committee for sticking with it.

This debate is about annexation and settlements, de jure and de facto theft of Palestinian land, sequestrating and simply seizing land. Neither is new. East Jerusalem was annexed in 1980, and the Golan in 1981. Settlement has continued unabated under successive Israeli Governments since 1967. It is the most obvious and effective manifestation of the occupation. However, the focus since the launch of the so-called Trump peace plan in January and Netanyahu’s call for annexation of the west bank in May has been on annexation. Trump envisages 30% to 40% of the west bank, including the Jordan valley and much of area C, being absorbed into Israel. Netanyahu would go further, although in stages. If there does remain any hope for a viable Palestinian state, and therefore for the two-state solution, either scheme would finally kill it. No doubt we will hear from the Government that the threat of annexation has gone away, but it is clear from the comments made by Netanyahu himself, by his ambassador at the UN and, indeed, by the US ambassador to Israel in the last few weeks that this is a temporary abatement and that annexation is still firmly on the table.

Let me briefly say a word about the UAE and Bahrain accords with Israel. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon said, there has been no friction between those countries; indeed, there has been substantial military co-operation. A thousand miles separate them, and there has been no hostility between them. It is easy to see what is in the accords for Trump and Netanyahu, but it is less easy to see how they benefit the Palestinians or advance peace between Israel and Palestine. The Arab peace initiative—almost 20 years old—offered full recognition of Israel by the entire Arab world, in exchange for ending the occupation, and it is a pity that we have not gone further down that route. It does rather look as though all of this is rewarding bullying, in the sense that, by taking the threat of annexation off the table, albeit temporarily, Israel gains benefit.

However, that is something of a distraction compared with what is happening on the ground in terms of settlement expansion. Some 610,000 Israeli settlers are living in the occupied territories and, as we have heard, thousands more units are being built. Area C is being annexed de facto as we speak; indeed, just today I heard from the villages in the south Hebron hills—12 villages, with around 1,000 people, including Susya, which many Members have visited—which are being incorporated into a firing zone and threatened with being demolished, in the same way that Khan al-Ahmar was. As for Gaza, where most of the water is undrinkable and most people are reliant on international aid, as far as the international community is concerned it is still under occupation.

So what do we do in the light of this situation? I repeat what the right hon. Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) said about recognition. The Government say, “When the time is right.” I wonder what would make the time right. Perhaps the Minister can tell us. Recognition would be a positive step.

We cannot continue trading with settlements that are illegal under international law or supporting companies that do that. One positive thing is that many groups, from all sides of the equation, have come together to condemn the recent threats of annexation. I hope that that is a way forward, but it comes at a bleak time. We acted within days in relation to the occupation and annexation of the Crimea. Why can we not do the same for the occupied Palestinian territories?