Palestinian Territories

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Thursday 7th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

My Lords, those in this debate who are friends of Israel, including myself, have no need to fear criticisms of the Israeli government policy on this matter. What an enormous tragedy we face in the Middle East with this problem—an enormous, unconscionable tragedy that has now gone on for 50 years. Saddam Hussein was rightly expelled by the international community after his invasion of Kuwait one year later and everyone supported that, but Israel is still in occupation 50 years later. Many Israeli citizens are now fed up to the back teeth with this policy. The trouble is that the very right-wing newspapers in the British press rarely report anything other than what the Israeli Government say, and indeed what the American Government say. This unspeakable President is the worst in American history; what he has done in Jerusalem is disgraceful. Because of that reporting we get a false picture, but a lot of moderate Israeli people that I know of, along with a lot of the Israeli press and organisations such as Haaretz, B’Tselem and Peace Now, want a change. They want negotiations and they want to see a two-state solution.

Israel is quite rightly the unbeatable military power because when it first began it always needed protection. That having been established beyond all measurements, though—including the illegal holding of nuclear weapons, apparently—Israel is now an established state. It has been so for 70 years, and the celebrations of that were very joyous. Because of that, however, it has the solemn obligation to take the lead in these negotiations. It is not up to Israel to say, “Oh well, there’s no one to negotiate with”. It has to give the lead.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Steel, for securing this debate. I agree with everything that he said in his excellent speech; and the noble Marquis, Lord Lothian, and the noble Lord, Lord Hain, said very similar things: we are friends of Israel but nevertheless we are asking for proper negotiations. Those can come only by Israel taking the lead. It is no use waiting for the hopeless Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, who has lost all authority over the Palestinian citizens in those territories. Hamas has made proposals that have been ignored. The 2002 offer by the Arab League was ignored and dismissed out of hand by the Israeli Government of the time, a disgraceful reaction to such a special offer of instant recognition of Israel by all the Arab League member states. That massive problem has never been repaired, as the noble Lord, Lord Steel, said.

The other part of the tragedy is that we have the two worst leading politicians in Israeli history dealing with this matter. Netanyahu is a hopeless Prime Minister, despite all the publicity that he gets and the glowing support for him from right-wing extremists in Israel. There is a growing number of the latter at the moment, which is a disturbing factor in an otherwise very tolerant and fair-minded country that I always enjoyed visiting, although I must say I do not like going there very much at the moment. Meanwhile I believe I am right that Mr Lieberman is the only Foreign Minister to live in a foreign country; he actually lives in the Palestine Occupied Territories, occupied illegally because the United States has now imposed 37 vetoes allowing Israel to ignore international law, disagree with the international community and do what it likes.

This cannot go on. It is not right for Israel to think that this is a good policy. Israel will suffer as well as this goes on and gets worse. Arab and other countries in the Middle East have different views about these matters and want some action on Israel so that there are proper negotiations. It can be done.

Where is the de Gaulle in Israel? Where is the Rabin? What a tragedy that he was murdered, as the noble Lord, Lord Steel, said. Where is the de Klerk or the Nelson Mandela? There is no leadership of that quality yet, but it will come as the Israeli public wake up and improve their electoral system, which is very flawed and seriously adds to the extremism of the present political process in Israel in a very disturbing way. It can be done: the will is there. The United Nations must be allowed to ask the international community to respond properly and faithfully in this case.