Israel and Gaza

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, on the second part I am not able to comment. I am grateful for the welcome that has been given to the degree of support the Prime Minister and Government have already announced.

The noble Lord is quite right about the important role of the UN agencies; they are, in effect, the conduit for aid going into Gaza. UNRWA has a unique mandate from the UN General Assembly, as the noble Lord knows, to protect and provide protection and core services to Palestinian refugees across the Middle East. It is a vital humanitarian and stabilising force in the region.

The Government are clear that the final status of Palestinian refugees must be agreed as part of eventual peace negotiations. Until then, the UN remains firmly committed to supporting UNRWA and those who work with it. It is worth recalling that it provides basic education to more than 500,000 children per year, half of whom are girls, access to health services for 3.5 million Palestinian refugees and social safety net assistance for around 390,000 of the most vulnerable across the region. So, yes, I can give the noble Lord the assurance he asked for.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I also welcome the kind and supportive Statement we have just heard. It comes as a ray of light in the farrago of disinformation that we are getting. I have three points to raise.

First, on the question of aid, over the last decades billions of dollars have been channelled into the Palestinian territories, largely through UNRWA. Where has it all gone? The concrete that was supposed to build houses has apparently been used for nefarious purposes and for hiding. What has happened to all that money from all over the world, which appears to have been used by Hamas to get rockets and to make trouble, rather than supporting their people?

Secondly, the two-state solution is all very well. However, as long as the call goes out “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, we know that “From the river to the sea” means the total annihilation of Israel and its replacement with one state. A state has been offered on four occasions to the Palestinians and rejected.

Thirdly, I hope the Government will have a mind to the trouble going on in our universities. Just today I heard from someone connected with Warwick University that two Jewish students there who refused to join a pro-Palestine march have been ostracised and made to feel extremely unwelcome, and that the Jewish society app has been hacked with all sorts of nasty messages. This is simply an example of the sort of thing going on in our universities. Vice-chancellors need to be told to take care of all their students, bearing in mind, of course, freedom of speech, but also bearing in mind the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism. Our young people are on the front line and they are suffering.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness makes three challenging contributions. It is not the case that every part of aid offered and sent is used for the purposes it ought to be. That cannot be the case, sadly, in what is effectively a terrorist-controlled entity. What we can do, working with the agencies and the UN, using them as conduits, is to ensure that as much as possible goes to the support of the people. I gave some figures in response to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. The fact that some aid has in the past been stolen and misapplied, and may be in the future, surely does not absolve us of the moral duty to seek to assist those in danger and those who are in need.

On the noble Baroness’s second point on the security of Israel, it is obvious that there can be no diplomatic two-state solution while Israel feels that it does not have the basic security of the right to survive that any people and nation have.

Thirdly, having not strayed into trying to direct broadcasters, I will not try to direct universities. However, all in authority need to have a care that their campuses are not misused or penetrated by malign organisations. Every student, in that glorious nobility of youth, should realise that treating others with respect is one of the most wonderful aspects of the human condition. If the story that the noble Baroness told is true, it is appalling and I hope that it is not replicated elsewhere.