Middle East and North Africa

Lord Judd Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, like others, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Risby, for initiating what has been a very interesting debate. I also must say how impressed I was by the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi. Her courage, integrity and commitment to truth are a challenge to us all.

I serve as chairman of the Committee on Middle East Questions of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Its purpose is to try to persuade and encourage Israelis and Palestinians to talk to each other. We recently decided in that committee that we cannot do our work meaningfully without looking at the region as a whole and we are extending our work in that way. Recently in Geneva, we had a very interesting round table. The noble Lord, Lord Risby, spent quite a lot of his rather important speech talking about Syria, as have other noble Lords. The Speaker of the Syrian Parliament was with us at our round table and made a contribution. I will quote from the official report of that—it is better as chairman that I stick to the official report. It said:

“The Speaker of the Syrian Parliament stressed that the Syrian People’s Assembly was the only legitimate body entitled to make statements about the situation in Syria and the Syrian people, who were paying a high price for the terrorist acts committed by ISIL, Al Nusrah Front and the Army of Islam. He added that if the world was serious about effectively combating terrorism, the international community would have to cooperate with Syria and Iraq. The Syrian Government was fighting terrorism but was stymied in its efforts by the support, funds and weapons supplied to terrorist groups by some western and Middle Eastern countries.

He referred to UN Security Council resolution 2170, which called for respecting the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria. He emphasized that the Syrian Government rejected any regional intervention in Syria, especially the imposition of a buffer zone along its northern border, highlighting that the coalition had been formed outside the framework of the UN Security Council by countries that had contributed to the emergence of ISIL and the proliferation of terrorism.

The Speaker requested IPU support for a political solution to the conflict in Syria and for its national reconciliation efforts. He highlighted that Syria rejected any attempt to violate its sovereignty by forming new armed groups under the banner of a moderate opposition”.

I totally align myself with what the noble Lord, Lord Wright, said. I was one of those who was highly critical of Syria and its appalling human rights action—and, actually, this was reported absolutely outrageously across the world—but I think that we have to listen to what the Syrians themselves say. We must face up to that.

As that same round table—it was a very interesting occasion—the Deputy Speaker of the Jordanian Parliament also contributed. Here is another brief quote from the report:

“The Deputy Speaker … described the increasingly acute consequences of the regional conflict for Jordan. The basic population of 4 million had become 11 million with refugees from Palestine, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. The social and political impact of this was potentially highly destabilizing”.

We have talked a lot about the present situation and what in the past has led up to it, but if we are intelligent then we should be talking about the future. I put it to noble Lords that the refugee problem in this region will make many of the things with which we are grappling at the moment seem like child’s play. The political consequences are incalculably great.

It is fair to ask what I have learnt from my work on the committee. In the past 18 months I have made several visits to the region. I have been able to meet with the speaker of the Knesset, with President Abbas and others, and to have very important conversations which have deeply helped my own understanding. I have learnt that peacebuilding first of all requires—and this is difficult with all the pressures involved—the qualities of patience and persistence.

We must forgo the temptation to think that we can just manage peace, and have deadlines and get people to meet deadlines and enforce a peace. That does not work. A peace has to be grounded, and a peace that is grounded involves talk, negotiation and patience, as I have just said. It has to be inclusive; it is important to be talking to the people with whom it is difficult to talk, because they are key to the solutions. It is no good just picking the friendly, easy people to talk to. Anyone can do that and make agreements. That is why it has been so important to get around eventually to the view that Hamas is part of the solution and not just part of the problem.

It is also important to recognise that in these matters negotiations can too easily become the preserve of the negotiators. There is a sort of institutionalised game of negotiation. Fine work and great commitment go on in those negotiations, but we need wider understanding and wider concern among the wider public about the need for a settlement and for reaching accommodations. That means that we really should be promoting discussions between, for example, Israelis and Palestinians on issues of mutual concern, such as water or the problems and issues faced by women. We on our committee are determined to try to do something in that respect.

My convictions about the danger of counter- productivity have also been reconfirmed. Of course, so much of Israel’s behaviour is totally counterproductive and cannot possibly contribute to its long-term security. Equally, the firing of rockets into Israel was wrong, irresponsible and totally counterproductive.

I conclude simply with this. We must look at ourselves. It is no good reacting emotionally to young people—however misguided—who go off and fight with the cruel and horrible ISIS. Many of them become disillusioned; they want to come home. We should not stigmatise them and their friends and communities as somehow a threat to our future. The challenge is to win them back into our society, with rehabilitation and understanding. Young people make mistakes; they have always made mistakes. Our job is to win them back and integrate them, not to stigmatise them and thereby aggravate the problems in our own society.