Occupied Palestinian Territories: Israeli Settlements

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House reaffirms its support for the negotiation of a lasting peace between two sovereign states of Israel and Palestine, both of which must be viable and contiguous within secure and internationally recognised borders; calls on the Government to take an active role in facilitating a resumption of international talks to achieve this; welcomes UN Security Council Resolution 2334 adopted on 23 December 2016; and further calls on the government of Israel immediately to halt the planning and construction of residential settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories which is both contrary to international law and undermines the prospects for the contiguity and viability of the state of Palestine.

Given the investment that we have made in a two-state solution, my question to the Minister is: aside from standing on the touchlines watching the players on the field and shouting advice, what more can we do while our friend and ally pursues a policy on settlements that is bound, so proceeding, to deliver a situation in which the two-state solution becomes geographically and economically unworkable? Yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Sir Eric Pickles) rightly challenged the Prime Minister about the need for face-to-face negotiations. He is a champion of the case for greater investment in strategies and projects to bring about the integration of Palestinian and Israeli citizens, and he is right about that, too.

Our Department for International Development employees in Jerusalem, who travel into the city daily on a tortuous commute from the areas around Bethlehem, are young people in their mid-20s to mid-30s. The only interaction that they ever have with an Israeli subject is when, during that journey, they are challenged to show their papers under the operation of what I would call the pass laws that exist to ensure that people’s ability to live, stay and work in their own city is restricted.

I entirely understand how we got to that dreadful situation: because of the obscenity of suicide bombing. Israel—no Government—could not possibly tolerate the wholesale slaughter of its innocent citizens. The key question for us is, having got to this dreadful situation, how we get back from it. It is one thing to demand, quite properly, face-to-face negotiations, but pursuing a policy in respect of illegal settlements makes those negotiations much more difficult, particularly when that policy is driven by an increasingly strident ideology.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

I will give way when I have developed my argument.

On Monday night, when a Bill was passed in the Knesset retrospectively legalising 4,000 homes in illegal settlements, the Israeli Minister of Culture welcomed the result, saying that it was

“the first step towards complete…Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.”

The words “Judea and Samaria” were chosen carefully.

When President Trump was elected, the Israeli Interior Minister, no less, welcomed it by saying that we are witnessing

“the birth pangs of the Messiah when everything has been flipped to the good of the Jewish people”.

On Monday, Mr Speaker put a rather different gloss on Mr Trump’s election but, nevertheless, it is absolutely clear that a significant proportion of the Israeli political establishment is in thrall to an increasingly strident settler movement that regards Palestine as a biblical theme park—Judea and Samaria.

The more strident and aggressive outriders of the settler movement are not people we would necessarily welcome as our neighbours. I particularly refer to what is now happening in Hebron. Setting aside some of the ruses that are used to acquire property, when the settlers move in, it is actually their Palestinian neighbours who have to erect grilles and meshes over their windows, and fences around their yards, to exclude projectiles and refuse. The reaction of the security forces to protect their newly resident citizens is to impose an exclusion zone, and to cordon off and sanitise the access and areas around those properties. So proceeding, Palestinians find that they are excluded from the heart of their city and, indeed, from the environs of their own homes. It has all the appearance of what we used to describe as petty apartheid.

Secretary Kerry explained at the turn of the year why the United States would no longer pursue its policy of exercising its veto in respect of UN Security Council resolution 2334. He said that if the two-state solution were abandoned, Israel could no longer be both a democracy and a Jewish state because, as a consequence of abandoning the policy, it would have to accommodate Palestinian citizens and all their civil and political rights within the state of Israel.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

But did not John Kerry also say that

“this is not to say that the settlements are the whole or even primary cause of the conflict—of course they are not. Nor can you say that if they were removed you would have peace without a broader agreement—you would not”?

That was what he said. The right hon. Gentleman could have tabled a more balanced motion that reflects—look, he is sneering—all the barriers to a two-state solution, which is what I want to see.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

I certainly was not sneering. I entirely accept that that was what John Kerry said—I do not dispute it for one moment. Frankly, the motion could not be more anodyne.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

rose—

[William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

Is now not the time, more than ever, for the United Kingdom Government to be entirely consistent and to remind the world, without any qualification, that settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal?

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

I absolutely agree. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) still wish to intervene?

[Richard Graham]

In a moment.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

Very well. I shall return to my point about John Kerry. The key question is the one I put to the Minister at the start of my speech: what can we do? I was delighted by the activism of the United Kingdom Government on UN Security Council resolution 2334.

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

Not yet.

I was, of course, dismayed by the subsequent inactivity of Her Majesty’s Government in respect of the Paris conference. That comes back to the question of what we do every time there is some outrageous announcement on settlements.

[Mr Spellar]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

I will not give way.

What we do—I have heard the Minister say this from the Dispatch Box—is we make representations at the highest level. I have also said that at the Dispatch Box, and of course we do make those representations. I am certain that the Prime Minister will have made representations to the Prime Minister of Israel on Monday. I last made representations to an Israeli politician at a meeting in the Knesset with the chief negotiator with the Palestinians and Deputy Prime Minister. Halfway through that meeting, he stormed out announcing that I had launched a brutal assault—moi! As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am a pussy in comparison with the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who is a terrier. I am absolutely convinced that his representations will be much more robust than mine but, so long as they remain representations, the Government of Israel will continue to act with absolute impunity.

The question to the Minister is: what do we do beyond representations? What else exists in his armoury to escalate the situation? I accept that that is an extraordinarily difficult question because Israel is our friend and ally. It is a democracy, and a nation in which we have huge commercial interests and with which we share vital intelligence agendas.

[Richard Graham]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

I am afraid that my hon. Friend has missed his opportunity.

As I conclude, may I make one gentle suggestion to my hon. Friend the Minister? He might consider giving effect to this House’s instruction that we should recognise the Palestinian state. I have heard him say that we can do that only once, and that therefore we need to choose the moment at which that will have the maximum impact. I agree with him, but he needs to consider this: it would be truly absurd if we were to delay that recognition till after the point at which the reality of any such Palestinian state could actually be delivered.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

My fear is that a sufficient number of Israeli politicians have drawn precisely the opposite conclusion to John Kerry and believe that they can indeed build towards the exclusion of a Palestinian state and yet withhold civil rights within Israel on the grounds that the Palestinians must seek those civil rights in Jordan or in sub-state Bantustans. This is the 50th year of the occupation, so I am grateful to the bishops, fresh from their visit to the region, who, in their communiqué, quote Leviticus, chapter 25, verse 10: “You will declare this fiftieth year to be sacred and you will proclaim the liberation of all the country’s inhabitants.”

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House reaffirms its support for the negotiation of a lasting peace between two sovereign states of Israel and Palestine, both of which must be viable and contiguous within secure and internationally recognised borders; calls on the Government to take an active role in facilitating a resumption of international talks to achieve this; welcomes UN Security Council Resolution 2334 adopted on 23 December 2016; and further calls on the government of Israel immediately to halt the planning and construction of residential settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories which is both contrary to international law and undermines the prospects for the contiguity and viability of the state of Palestine.