Israel and Palestine

Lord Suri Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Suri (Con)]

My Lords, I have just returned from my first ever visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, organised by the All-Party Britain-Israel Parliamentary Group in conjunction with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I now feel that I have seen some things that allow me to express myself on this subject.

We visited a wonderful organisation called Middle East Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow, known as MEET. Over 12 years, MEET has brought together 400 excelling Israeli and Palestinian youth, aged 15 to 18, in their two hubs in Nazareth and Jerusalem. Each year, MEET engages approximately 170 of the most talented Israeli and Palestinian youth and currently has 300 graduates regionally and internationally. The system that it has set up is an excellent example. It has no commercial interest; rather, it just wants to promote peace and co-existence. Surely this is a wonderful model, which should be replicated. Not only do high school students receive invaluable entrepreneurial skills, which will benefit them and their careers, as well as having the knock-on effect of benefiting their wider community and economy, but they also fraternise with people of their own age whom their parents and their political leaders might even say they should be killing. Can the Minister say what plans the Government have to fund more co-existence projects like MEET?

I was born in the state of Punjab in India in 1935, 12 years before partition in 1947. Millions of innocent lives were lost during partition. They did not do anything wrong. They were killed purely because of the country they belonged to. During our visit, we went to Yad Vashem, where I laid a wreath during a memorial service to commemorate the 6 million Jews who were murdered by the Nazis purely because of the religion they belonged to—nothing else. These two horrendous atrocities have taught me a great lesson and should serve as a great lesson to the world, too. The people who suffer the most through wars are the innocent people.

Loss of life can be prevented only if we have a robust peace plan between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Israel has agreed to give a helping hand to the Palestinian state, which should be accepted. The Prime Minister of Israel has stated publicly on many occasions that he is willing to return to the negotiating table without any preconditions. However, President Abbas seems unwilling to co-operate. I was pleased to see the two shake hands at the funeral of former President Shimon Peres and I hope that this will lead to the resumption of talks. Many world leaders have resolved such issues without bloodshed—to name just a few, Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela, when he unified the nation of South Africa after his release from prison. Coincidentally, all these three great leaders and advocates of peace have statues in Parliament Square. We should follow their example.

The economic growth of Israel is remarkable. Increased economic ties will help both sides and consequently world development. Israel has very strong ties with the UK, the US and India. In fact, during our visit the Indian Minister of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Radha Mohan Singh, was there and met Israeli Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel, and they discussed a variety of existing and future opportunities for co-operation. The UK is Israel’s second-largest trading partner; bilateral trade is worth £5 billion a year and has doubled in the last decade. Can the Minister say what plans there are to further the already prosperous bilateral trade relationship?

On our final morning in Israel, we had the extreme privilege of being hosted by the Israeli President, Reuven Rivlin. I will conclude by sharing with your Lordships the conversation I had with him. I said to him: “Mr President, everyone else has asked you a question. However, I actually don’t have any questions for you. You see, after hearing your excellent words this morning and from what I have seen from this week in Israel on my first visit, I have no questions, because everything is so clear to me. What the state of Israel has developed in just over 70 years since its creation is just simply marvellous and this miraculous small country has no parallel in the world”.

We must do everything possible to encourage both sides to return to the negotiating table to agree to a long-lasting peace solution, where the security of the innocent populations, both the Israelis and Palestinians, is guaranteed.