Foreign Affairs

Baroness Morris of Bolton Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Bolton (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Fowler. I was reminded of dragging him and my noble friend Lord Johnson—whom I saw on the steps of the Throne earlier—through the Sinai Desert, with a number of others, into Gaza. We had to go through Rafah, because the Israelis would not let us in through Erez. We arrived very tired and dusty, and the first visit was to a school, which was two containers stacked on top of one another. Some little boys in beautifully whitewashed shirts had learned a song for us: it was “If You’re Happy and You Know It (Clap Your Hands)”. I wonder what has happened to them now.

I thank my noble friend Lord Ahmad for his excellent opening of this debate, and especially for his depth of knowledge and commitment to the Middle East. I declare my interests as set out in the register, especially my positions as Prime Minister’s trade envoy to Kuwait, Jordan and the Occupied Palestinian Territories and president of Medical Aid for Palestinians.

What has happened over the last 151 days, first in Israel and then in Gaza, is nothing short of tragedy. The unconscionable acts of Hamas on 7 October were abhorrent and the train of events that they have unleashed is heartbreaking. The devastation in Gaza is unimaginable, and yet the hostages have not been released and one in 20 Palestinians, mainly women and children, have been killed or injured. In the north of Gaza, which has consistently been denied food, and with few aid trucks able to get through, one in six children under the age of two are now seriously malnourished. This has not been caused by crop failures or drought; as the UN said, this is entirely manmade and, as such, could be immediately reversed.

I would like to pay great tribute to my noble friends the Foreign Secretary and Lord Ahmad. They could not have done more to deliver difficult messages, especially on the access of aid. Where trucks cannot go, we have dropped aid from the air in co-operation with our good friends the Jordanians, and this is more than welcome. But aid dropped from the sky does not always reach those who need it most. What we need is fully trained workers on the ground to help to distribute the aid and to treat the children, but they cannot gain access with the ongoing bombardment.

As of yesterday, 16 children had died of starvation, dehydration and malnutrition. Today, that number will have grown. Children should not be used as a weapon of war. I agree with my noble and very good friend Lord Ahmad that the fighting must stop, and it has to stop now. In a powerful and passionate speech which says everything, and which was delivered at the Cairo summit for peace on 21 October last year, His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan said:

“This conflict did not start two weeks ago, and it will not stop if we continue down this blood-soaked path. We know all too well that it will only lead to more of the same—a zero-sum game of death and destruction, of hatred and hopelessness played on repeat”.


The only hope of preventing the seeds of future hatred growing is a two-state solution. In a speech last October to your Lordships, I said that I had always hoped that the path to peace might be through the Arab peace initiative and that one day it might be picked up, dusted down and given new purpose. Among all this heartache, I was delighted to read that serious work was being undertaken by the Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, to forge a path to peace. I very much hope the UK Government will give any such initiative their full support and that we will help in any way we can.

Of course, we are able to make the first step towards a two-state solution, and that is recognition of Palestine. I welcome my noble friend’s statement on this. My noble friend Lord Soames and I called for recognition in 2011, when the World Bank, the IMF, the UN and the EU had all said that Palestine was ready for statehood. When President Obama promised that Palestine would be a new member of the UN, we endorsed that promise. We missed the opportunity to change the course of history then—we can do better now.

Israel/Gaza

Baroness Morris of Bolton Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Bolton (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble and very good friend the Minister for his powerful opening speech. I also thank my right honourable friends the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary for their extraordinarily hard work these past few days. The Prime Minister referred in his Statement yesterday to the

“quiet and dogged diplomacy that recognises the hard realities on the ground and delivers help now”. [Official Report, Commons, 23/10/23; col. 592.]

It is a privilege to speak in this debate and to follow such exceptional speeches.

The world was rightly horrified by the barbarity—the killings, injuries and kidnapping—which Israel suffered at the hands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad on Saturday 7 October. I express my deepest condolences to my Jewish friends and colleagues and to the Israelis I have come to know over the years, many of whom have been directly affected. I condemn those unforgiveable actions. Yet the price of those atrocities cannot be the deaths of thousands of other innocent children, women and men. What is happening in Gaza is horrific and cannot continue. My heart is heavy for their loss and for my many Palestinian friends who mourn their loved ones.

I declare my interests as the Prime Minister’s trade envoy to Jordan, Kuwait and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, president of the Palestine British Business Council and president of Medical Aid for Palestinians. MAP is one of the last international agencies still operating in Gaza. When this all began, over 18 days ago, we literally opened our cupboards and emptied our bank accounts to provide essential medical supplies and much-needed drugs to treat the injured and the dying. In terrifying circumstances, our colleagues on the ground are working until they are exhausted, including some who have carried on in the full knowledge that their homes have been bombed and their loved ones are dead. They are heroes, and I pay tribute to them all and to all who put their lives in danger for others.

I warmly welcome the Government’s commitment to increase aid and the first trucks to enter Gaza with crucial supplies. But as the Prime Minister said yesterday and my noble friend the Minister said today, it is not enough. I hope that the promises made by the United States and Israel of a continued flow of aid into Gaza will be of the quantity needed to sustain and support life. And Gaza needs fuel, not least to keep the hospitals going. As we speak, there are 130 babies in incubators whose lives are in imminent danger if fuel does not reach the hospitals soon. As of this morning, there is only around 48 hours of fuel left. Too many babies and children on both sides have already died.

As aid enters Gaza, it is imperative that the hostages are released. I had tears in my eyes this morning witnessing the amazing spirit of Yocheved Lifschitz, shaking the hand of her captor as she was released. I pray for the safe return of all those still held captive. I also pray for the safe passage of British citizens trapped in Gaza. My son’s friend from childhood is one of them, and I was delighted to hear the encouraging news on this from my noble friend the Minister.

While all eyes have been on Gaza, there has been a significant clampdown on the movement of people and goods in the West Bank. Normal life—I use that term advisedly—is on hold. The West Bank is not operating properly; there are challenges of movement for fast-moving consumer goods, often with settler violence along the way. Towns are locked down and it is almost impossible to get medical supplies to where they are urgently needed.

To compound this, the date harvest is in full swing and the olive harvest is imminent. Both are vital for the Palestinian economy, yet farmers cannot get to the towns and cities, and shipments of Palestinian goods out of the country are on complete hold. Soon, producers are going to be unable to fulfil their orders to the UK and worldwide. I ask my noble friend the Minister what steps we and the international community are taking to ensure the sustainability of the Palestinian economy, which is such a vital component of peace.

Last week, in his important and valued visit to the Middle East, the Prime Minister visited the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia—the birthplace of the 2002 Arab peace initiative, a visionary plan of the late King, His Majesty King Abdullah, which offered Israel peace with the whole Arab world but also offered hope for the Palestinian people. Since then, 21 difficult years have passed, and I recognise that other avenues to peace have been explored. Yesterday, the Prime Minister acknowledged the work of the Abraham accords and normalisation, and how they can bolster wider efforts. We should all applaud genuine steps to a more peaceful, prosperous world, but the sad truth is that you cannot normalise an abnormal situation and any lasting path to peace must give the Palestinians a stake in their future.

That is why the Prime Minister was absolutely right when he spoke of the need to invest more deeply in regional stability and in the two-state solution. The two go hand in hand. Peace will never come to the region while Palestinians live under occupation, unable to control their own lives, to trade or travel easily, and to live with dignity; neither will Israelis be able to live safely and without fear.

I had always hoped that the path to peace would come through the Arab peace initiative—that one day it might have been picked up, dusted down and given new purpose. Perhaps it still can be, or something similar. But whatever the vehicle, I make a plea to the Government and to the wider international community to rededicate their efforts to working with our Arab and Israeli friends to bring an end to this horror. I ask them not to stop until a just and enduring settlement is reached, which sees the two states that we all long for living side by side in peace, prosperity and friendship. Let that be the legacy of this unspeakable tragedy.

Israel and Palestine: United States’ Proposals for Peace

Baroness Morris of Bolton Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Bolton (Con)]

My Lords, we witness daily on our televisions, in our newspapers and on social media the dereliction of lives and property across the Middle East—from Syria, with families wiped out as they flee the bombs of Assad and the Russians, to the plight of innocent children caught up in the civil war in Yemen and the atrocities of ISIS in Iraq. In the middle of all that misery it is easy to suppose that the question of Palestine is no longer a main priority for the region.

It may not be the most pressing, but we must not forget those who day in, day out live lives which no one in your Lordships’ House would consider to be normal. The occupation of the Palestinian territories and the associated hardships and humiliation that brings is now the longest occupation in modern history. But this intractable problem, while not being headline news, still captures, as it has over the years, the minds of leading statesmen in their quest to solve the never-ending conundrum of the Middle East peace process.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, for bringing this debate to your Lordships’ House and for giving us the opportunity to discuss the latest proposals for peace. I declare my interests as the Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to the Palestinian territories, president of the Palestine British Business Council and president of Medical Aid for Palestinians.

All efforts to promote peace should be welcomed. It is not in anyone’s best interests that this question remains unresolved, but any proposal must be rooted in reality and must always have international law as its compass. I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his robust reiteration, earlier this month, of the United Kingdom’s long-held position of two states, based on 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as the shared capital.

I was particularly pleased by the sentiment expressed by my right honourable friend the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa in his Statement on the United States proposal, when he said:

“Only the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian territories can determine whether the proposals can meet the needs and aspirations of the people they represent.”—[Official Report, Commons, 30/1/20; col. 927.]


This sentiment is amplified by the respected Israeli NGO Gisha, which has said of the latest peace proposals:

“A real solution to the conflict cannot be reached by coercion; it will only come by recognizing the rights of all residents of the region.”


The irony is that for the past 18 years such a solution has been available. The Arab peace initiative put forward in March 2002 by His Royal Highness Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, the then Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, offered comprehensive peace between the Arab world and Israel in return for a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. This peace initiative was again proposed earlier this month, at a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Arab countries at the Arab League, as the basis for any deal between Israel and Palestine.

This region is brimming with potential and it is criminal that much of it languishes unused. As I said in the debate in the name of my noble friend Lord Cope of Berkeley last year—which was a forerunner to this debate—the first, not last, step to unleashing this potential, and to lasting peace and prosperity, is the end of occupation and the recognition of the state of Palestine, alongside the State of Israel, of which my noble friend Lady Altmann spoke so passionately.

I am sure I speak for all noble Lords when I say that I long for the day when we have no more need for debates such as this. However, I fear that the latest proposals for peace, with all the hard work that has gone into them, and however well-intentioned they may be, will not meet the test of answering the needs and aspirations of the Palestinian people because they leave them with no hope of self-determination. As Norman Cousins, the late American political journalist, said:

“The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life.”