Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan

Debate between Diane Abbott and Nick Boles

Monday 16th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I am very pleased indeed to have the opportunity to speak in this important debate. Before going any further, I would like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) on what I thought was an important and brave speech. I am going to touch briefly on the Israel-Palestine question, on Afghanistan and then, of course, Libya.

On the Israel-Palestine question, I cannot add much to what many others have said, but let me say this. I have heard Conservative Members say that we do not understand the Israelis’ wish for security. I was a Member of this House at the end of the ’80s, when an IRA bombing campaign on the mainland was still happening and I remember Mrs Thatcher being blown up in the Grand hotel in Brighton. I also heard the Canary Wharf bomb going off from my kitchen in the east end of London, so do not tell those of us who lived through that era that we do not take security issues seriously.

The proposition was put forward that Israel wants all these triple locks, guarantees and so forth before it will move forward. What triple lock guarantees did John Hume of the Social Democratic and Labour party have before he opened the first tentative negotiations with the IRA back in the ’80s? What triple lock guarantees did Nelson Mandela have when he was in prison and first opened overtures to the apartheid regime? The truth is that in the most bloody, difficult and seemingly intractable situations that we have seen in my lifetime, people have had to be prepared to go forward without the triple lock guarantees about which some Members have spoken, but with a will to bring about peace. As long as Israel believes that it has the unconditional support of the United States and Britain, it will continue to shelter behind the notion of triple lock guarantees.

[Nick Boles]

I accept what the hon. Lady says, but does she accept that there was no question in the Irish situation of the people of this country being driven out of this country by those in the IRA who were fighting us? They wanted us to get out of what they perceived as their country; they were not trying to deny our right to be here. The fundamental situation faced by Israel is that some, though not all, of its neighbours believe that Israel should not exist and that all its people should be driven into the sea. That poses a security risk of a quite different quality.