Occupied Palestinian Territories: Israeli Settlements

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mike Freer]

Would the hon. Gentleman gives me a moment? As the right hon. Member for Enfield North said, this is a fundamental issue of building trust. Unless trust is built and the issue of disputed lands is dealt with, the trust deficit will continue.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, as far as Israel was concerned, the trust was almost ended when the only result of removing all settlements from Gaza was a torrent—an avalanche—of rockets and missiles?

[Mike Freer]

My hon. and long-time Friend makes a good point. Everyone talks about Israel giving up land for peace. It has given land, but it did not get the peace.

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[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) because, like him and the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), I have been fully involved in visits to Israel and the west bank—six over the past three years—with organisations that encourage co-operation between Israelis and Palestinians. I also chair events here where those organisations come forward and describe what they are doing. I have on several occasions been to Tel Aviv to see Save a Child’s Heart, a brilliant organisation that goes out of its way to treat Palestinian children who have heart problems. That involves fine surgery that requires a great deal of skill.

[Bob Blackman]

My hon. Friend mentioned Save a Child’s Heart. Will he confirm that children from other Arab countries and beyond receive life-saving treatment at the hospital in which it operates?

[John Howell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The number of Arab children treated by the Israeli doctors at the hospital is phenomenal, and it sets a brilliant example for the whole region.

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[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk), who made an eloquent speech.

The motion before us is a curate’s egg—good in parts. At its heart, there is a false assertion. As hon. Members have said, the only way in which this crisis in the middle east will ever be solved is by face-to-face negotiations between the Palestinian leaders and the state of Israel. As we all know, this area of the world has had a long history of being occupied by empires down through the ages. The Ottoman empire ruled the area until the time of the first world war, when the British mandate came in, and the reality is that the west bank was annexed by Jordan in 1950. To call it occupied territory is of course to suggest that a country once existed, but it has never existed. That is the real dilemma in this whole problem.

I absolutely think that United Nations Security Council resolution 2334 should not have been supported by the United Kingdom Government; it was wrong for them to do so. It was passed in the dying days of President Obama’s presidency, and his refusal to support Israel in its hour of need was a deliberate swipe at that country, as history will show. However, I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on distancing herself from John Kerry’s one-sided speech. That was a unique point in history, because it was the first time that a British Government had distanced themselves from the serving Secretary of State of our greatest ally in the world. I congratulate the Government on not sending individuals to the Paris conference, which attempted to internationalise the solution to the problem.

I want to ask the Minister about one particular issue. What is his view of the Oslo accords and the agreements that the Palestinians made with the Israeli Government? Under those agreements, it was quite clear that developments could take place in area C of the west bank—that was permitted and agreed to by the Palestinians—so to call this illegal is incorrect.

Equally, we have heard that United Nations resolution 2334 would prevent Jews and Christians from celebrating at the western wall and at the greatest Christian sites. Before 1967, the western wall was out of bounds to Jews, and the same thing would happen again were this implemented. The green line was never, ever an international line, and there has never, ever been an international agreement on the exact borders of any potential state of Palestine.

I want to talk about something that has not been mentioned thus far: the plight of the 2.3 million Jewish refugees who were forced out of Arab countries and had to flee for their lives. Some of them went to Israel, some to the United States and others to parts of Europe. They are never mentioned, but there clearly has to be a home for them. When the Israeli Government put up housing developments for Jewish people who are refugees from Arab states, we should not condemn them but congratulate them on providing those facilities.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making very pertinent points. Does he agree that the whole point of this debate is that concessions need to be made on both sides? It would be unfortunate if people interpreted it as meaning that everything would be solved if only Israel did this or that. Substantial concessions are needed from both sides.

[Bob Blackman]

My concern, and that of many hon. Members, is that the Palestinians are trying to internationalise the issue—taking their case to the United Nations, and seeking help and assistance from outside—but are not getting the real issue, which is the need for face-to-face talks with the state of Israel to resolve the existing problems so that we can reach a conclusion with a secure state of Israel and a secure state of Palestine. We should always remember that the green line represents an area that would be indefensible for the state of Israel in the event of another war.

[Joan Ryan]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech and giving a historical analysis that has been somewhat lacking. Does he agree that in the process of trying to internationalise the process, rather than accepting that there have to be direct, face-to-face talks, the Palestinians are being misled into believing that peace can be found for them without their having to make any compromise? As the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) said—many hon. Members agree—compromise and trust building on both sides is required.

[Bob Blackman]

We clearly have to build trust and experience on all sides. I have had the experience of going to Israel on six occasions, and I have also had the opportunity to visit the west bank and Jordan with the Palestinian Return Centre. The reality is that the Jordanians did not build trust among the Palestinians at that time; they refused to give them status or title to their land. The problem that still remains is the difficulty of resolving those particular land issues. As the right hon. Lady has outlined, we must build trust through joint projects and by bringing people together so that there can be negotiation, with trust being built between the peoples, rather than their being separated.

It is quite clear that everyone would like the security barrier around Jerusalem to be removed, but it can be removed only when there is trust between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Once that is in place, we can achieve the dream of a two-state solution, with proper viable borders and proper security for both states.