Middle East and North Africa

Baroness Tonge Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tonge (Ind LD)]

My Lords, I would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Risby, for securing this debate. It has been important that so many other noble Lords have talked about Palestine: not just for the sake of the Palestinians, but for the sake of Israel, too, because that country’s future is being put in jeopardy by its present Government.

As we saw yesterday, the propaganda coming out of the Israeli embassy now is to concentrate on Hamas, the so-called terrorists who of course many people in the Middle East see as freedom fighters—we must remember that. Hamas was helped in its creation by Israel, which did not like Fatah, and Hamas won the European Union-monitored election in 2006. Hamas was then refused permission to lead the Government in Palestine. Hamas had its MPs arrested and put in Israeli prisons. Most of them are still there. Yet since 2009, Hamas has been saying—and this is from Khaled Meshaal—that it will recognise the state of Israel in the 1967 borders. No one likes to publicise that. Hamas deserves the right to defend the people of Gaza against the relentless blockade and helicopter gunships over that area, targeting and killing so-called terrorists and, more often, many innocent civilians. The people of Gaza have a right to be defended, too.

I want to discuss what I see as the wider ramifications of failing to deal with the need for the Palestinians to have their own state. Since entering the House of Commons in 1997, I have worked and travelled mainly in the field of international development, working on women's health issues and refugees. I have stayed in the meanest of camps and tents and among the people we are trying to help. One of the things I have heard from the 1990s onwards from refugees and others, especially those who are Muslim, is that Palestine is what the West, through its unquestioning support for Israel, “does” to Muslims. Stories are passed around and film footage is watched avidly over and over. You may say it is propaganda—much of it may be—but it is very effective. I will not take time on personal anecdotes; I have too many.

It is no surprise to me, therefore, that with our continuing support for Israel, more and more extreme Islamic groups have emerged determined to get their own back on the West, through terrorism. It is no surprise either that a recent incident in Canada, and an exposed terrorist plot in Australia, have followed attacks in our country and the USA. Both of these countries have unhesitatingly supported Israel with the USA and the United Kingdom.

Why can our leaders not see what damage we are doing by supporting the unspeakable policies of Israel, which breaks international law and Geneva conventions and totally ignores the human rights of Palestinians? It is time to be honest and ask what the real reason is. Why do we give this rogue Government our support? There are several reasons people will mention: Holocaust guilt—quite right—oil and security. But in my opinion and the opinion of many people who are afraid to say it publicly—but I will—there is none so important as the thing that dare not speak its name. I am talking about the activities of the lobby, in this country and in America, AIPAC in America and BICOM here, plus the groups called Friends of Israel in supporting and cajoling and fundraising and launching websites and letter-writing campaigns and e-mail storms, and not supporting MPs or parties if they refuse to give Israel support. Those of us who challenge the lobby are threatened and disposed of by our leaders as best they can. David Ward, my colleague in the other place, is currently fighting yet another battle against the lobby as I speak.

All lobbies are dangerous and undemocratic; the pro-Israel lobby is not the only one, but it is particularly dangerous in this context. Money and influence win over truth and justice, and the West sinks lower and lower in the world’s esteem because of it. The so-called Islamic State—and it really angers me that we persist in calling it that when it is neither Islamic nor a state—is the latest disgusting manifestation of angst in the Middle East. It marches on, followed by limp bombing campaigns from western alliances and silence over Israel’s atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank. The Middle East descends into hell, and we will follow if we do not do something to stop the slide.

Stopping Israel’s land and water grab and its brutal treatment of Palestinians would not solve everything—of course I am aware of that; it is too late for miracles—but it is at the root of the problems. Supporting a secure state of Palestine would be a huge and important gesture to show that we really care about western values, and will apply them equally all over the world where there is injustice—especially in Israel.