Israel/Palestinian Authority

Debate between Guto Bebb and Gordon Henderson

Tuesday 26th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Gordon Henderson]

I agree with my hon. Friend. It is shameful that such incitement to hatred has been denied by too many people. I appreciate the Minister’s efforts in recent weeks to further the matter in the Foreign Office, but what discussions has he had with his colleagues in east Jerusalem on the issue of incitement and hate education and how will the Foreign Office play a part in ending it?

The Palestinian school textbooks have included the same inflammatory messages that I have mentioned. I read with great interest a recent report into this matter by the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land. The US-funded report concluded that both Palestinian and Israeli textbooks could do more peacefully to portray the other side. The findings once again highlighted the fact that both sides in the conflict need to prepare their populations for a peaceful future. The report also shows the need for those responsible for Israeli ultra-Orthodox education to re-examine the material that they are putting out.

However, there are shortcomings in the report about which any reasonable and unbiased person should have concerns. Those shortcomings could explain why a number of the study’s scientific advisory panel and leading stakeholders have refused to endorse the report. For instance, the report fails to emphasise that the ultra-Orthodox school system, which makes up only 8% of the Israeli student body, is not Government-regulated. It does not represent an official Israeli line and should not be seen on a par with the PA-authorised textbooks. The report’s other major failure is that it justifies the levels of incitement found in Palestinian textbooks by asserting that perhaps it is because the Palestinians are at an earlier stage of nation building, are the weaker of the two adversaries and have suffered more hardships in day-to-day life. We must not be distracted on the path to seeking peace by that sort of moral relativism.

Consistent with the Palestinian Authority’s policy of glorifying terrorists, the PA financially reward terrorism by paying a monthly salary to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons convicted of terror offences. It pays a monthly salary of anything between £240 and £2,100 to prisoners serving multiple life sentences for involvement and facilitation of deadly acts of terrorism, including suicide bombings. The longer the time in prison, the higher the salary. To put it crudely, the more horrific the terrorist activity and the more Israelis who are killed, the larger the salary. In total, the PA is paying salaries totalling approximately £3 million each month to 5,500 Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons.

I was shocked to learn that those payments are part funded by the British taxpayer. Indeed, the payments come from the PA’s general budget, into which the UK contributes more than £30 million each year. I am unaware of any known safeguards in place preventing the use of UK aid to that end. Previous attempts by my parliamentary colleagues from all parts of the House to raise that issue have been met with apparent denial and a declaration that the payments are simply “social welfare payments to the families of prisoners.”

I wholeheartedly believe that dependent spouses or children should not be held responsible for the crimes of family members, and I doubt that any of my colleagues here today would disagree with me. None the less, PA legislation repeatedly refers to “salaries”—or ratib in Arabic—and not “social assistance” or “welfare payments”. Crucially, that legislation stipulates that a prisoner is not obligated to give his salary to his family. Unmarried prisoners also receive the same basic salary as those who are married and have children. Finally, a small stipend for wives and children paid to prisoners is received separately from the standard salaries.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. As he is aware, numerous questions have been asked of our Government in relation to those payments. Time and again, we have been told that they are salaries and not social assistance. However, in December 2012, a Palestinian Authority statement, which was released through its official news service, explicitly stated otherwise. That statement, which is made in the name of the Palestinian Minister responsible for prisoners’ affairs, Issa Karake, announced that those payments were salaries and not social assistance. It went further by stating that any talk of social assistance was incorrect rumour. How can my hon. Friend square that issue with the denials made by our own Government?

[Gordon Henderson]

I cannot—I have to ask my hon. Friend to put his question to the Government, because I cannot answer for them. However, since these payments are not explicitly given to those in need, it seems logical to assume that they are given as a form of reward for prisoners’ terror acts; to me, that is quite logical.

As I have shown today, those are the very same acts of terror that are all too frequently praised by the Palestinian Authority. I have no doubt that the Minister will have been in contact with his colleagues at the Department for International Development about this issue. However, can he tell me what discussions he has had with his Palestinian and Israeli counterparts on this issue? Furthermore, what assessment has he made of this very serious matter?

In conclusion, the PA’s failure to deliver on their commitment to end incitement explicitly undermines the principles and conditions on which the peace process is built. That incitement highlights the extent to which Palestinian society has not publicly begun to absorb the changes needed for a practical and genuinely peaceful co-existence with Israel. I contend that incitement is a form of abuse of Palestinian children. We must remember that those children are the next generation of peacemakers and state-builders. Simply put, no peace agreement will be able to guarantee peace in the medium to long term if a generation of Palestinians is growing up indoctrinated to hate Israel, Jews and the west.

I am reassured that this is an issue that the Government are starting to regard with increased seriousness. Indeed, the Prime Minister made his position clear at a United Jewish Israel Appeal dinner late last year, when he said:

“Britain will never support anyone who sponsors a football tournament named after a suicide bomber who killed 20 Israelis in a restaurant. We will not tolerate incitement to terrorism.”

The Government rightly hold Israel to account when Israeli policies stand in the way of peace in the region. By the same reasoning, it is important that they adopt a similar policy with regard to the Palestinians. The Palestinians will take any British silence as a green light to continue this practice. We must insist, as a policy, that the PA end the indoctrination of its youth with views that jeopardise a future of peaceful co-existence.

To that end, I ask the Minister to give me an assurance that the Government will make, and will continue to make, representations to the PA that incitement against Israel is unacceptable and in contravention of the Oslo agreement. Widespread PA-endorsed incitement has gone unchallenged for too long. The PA are clearly not making any effort to educate their people in peace and co-existence with Israel. As we move forward into this “year of peace”, the need to abandon all messages of incitement is more important than ever.