Israel and the Peace Process

Debate between Ian C. Lucas and Jonathan Reynolds

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Ian Lucas]

It is very important to recognise that Israel is a democracy and that it has an independent judiciary. We applaud those types of decisions and the fact that, within Israel, those decisions are being taken. However, pressures are coming from the Israeli Government. In the past year, they have talked about withdrawing funding from non-governmental organisations that do not support Israeli Government policy. That sort of thing does not help Israel, but the independent judiciary, to which my right hon. Friend refers, does. It is important that that is preserved. We have a situation in which some progress is being made, but that progress is not within the peace process at the present time. That is intensely frustrating.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Ian Lucas]

I am sorry, but I must make some progress. I apologise to my hon. Friend.

From my observations, the position of the peace process on the ground is intensely difficult. It is true that there had not been negotiations for a long time when I visited in November and that some meetings have occurred this year. We must, of course, welcome the fact that those meetings are taking place, but the settlements are a major barrier to any progress on securing peace. I should like to ask the Minister what efforts we are making to convey to the Israeli Government the importance of stopping settlement building. Unless that happens, the prospects for progress in the peace process are very limited.

I should also like to highlight the issue of UN recognition, because although the Labour party agrees with the Government position on many areas, we fundamentally disagree with their position to date on UN recognition. That is a matter of principle. If we really support a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine, we should establish the relevant mechanism in the United Nations. It is very disappointing that the Government took the view that that was not the correct approach.

As no real negotiations were going on, should we not have made an approach to the United Nations, which is a multilateral and respected organisation that had a major role in the establishment of the state of Israel? The state of Israel was, of course, granted recognition in 1947 and 1948 by UN resolutions on which the United Kingdom abstained. Should we not have gone to the UN to try to secure progress? It seems extraordinary that, when progress was not being made, the UK Government were resistant to using multilateral agencies and the most important multilateral agency of all—the United Nations—to secure progress.

I have been privileged to meet some hugely impressive individuals: Dan Meridor, the Deputy Prime Minister of Israel, who was in the Palace only last week, and Salam Fayyad, who has been mentioned. Anyone can do business with them and, most importantly, they can do business with each other. Those individuals are clearly people who can bring and achieve peace in the right circumstances, with pressure brought to bear by the international community.

We all want to see progress in the middle east. It is one of the great political issues of our lifetimes. Progress can be achieved only through a two-state solution. We need to exert pressure from the international community to get the two parties to the negotiating table to seek a solution. If a solution is reached in the Israel-Palestine conflict, we will have a more secure and stable middle east, and an Arab spring that will bring wider democracy to us all.