North Africa and the Middle East

Louise Ellman Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

We must not expect the countries that we work with to agree with us or with each other on every single issue all the time. Yes, the Prime Minister of Turkey has made remarks to that effect, but that does not mean that Turkey will not have a powerful role to play in the wider relationship between the European nations and the countries of the middle east over the next decade.

The European Union must now follow through on the European Council’s declaration of last Friday and make a real and credible offer to those countries, involving genuinely broader market access and the prospect of closer association with Europe. I hope that there will be considerable support across the House for such an approach. It is a long-standing strength of British foreign policy towards the middle east that it receives a wide degree of bipartisan support—tripartisan support, indeed—in Parliament and beyond, and that is something that this Government hope to foster and continue.

I also believe that there is support in the House for our view that the peace process must not become a casualty of uncertainty in the region. It is too important to be allowed to fail. There are dangerous undercurrents in the region, including the existence of armed groups wedded to violence and young people vulnerable to radicalisation, and a vacuum in the peace process risks conflict and even greater instability. Furthermore, the changing situation on the ground—in particular the illegal encroachment of settlements on the west bank and East Jerusalem, the isolation of Gaza and the entrenchment of Palestinian divisions—has made a two-state solution harder to achieve. Such a solution is the only lasting hope for sustainable peace and security in the region, but it is possible to foresee that the option of a two-state solution will have an expiry date if it is not taken up now.

In our view, the Quartet could help to achieve a breakthrough in the current stalemate by setting out in a statement the parameters for a future settlement. These should include: 1967 borders with equivalent land swaps; arrangements that protect Israel’s security and respect Palestinian sovereignty; just, fair and agreed solutions for refugees; and Jerusalem as the capital of both states. The statement should call on both sides to commit to negotiations based on those clear principles. Britain, France and Germany made such a statement at the UN on 18 February.

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

I certainly recognise all the difficulties that the Foreign Secretary has identified, but does he also recognise the problems created by Iran in relation to the peace process? For example, it sent more than 50 tonnes of illegal weapons bound for Gaza on a ship that was intercepted by the Israelis only a few days ago.

[Mr Hague]

I fully recognise the often deeply unhelpful role of Iran; I have already referred to that in a different context. I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady about that, but I also say, as a long-standing friend of Israel, that putting real energy into bringing about a two-state solution is the best way to secure the future that the friends of Israel want to see for it—namely, as a peaceful, secure democracy and a homeland for the Jewish people. We will make that case energetically over the coming weeks. For Britain, that also includes continuing our firm and frank dialogue with Syria on Lebanon, including the special tribunal for Lebanon, and on the importance of progress on a peace agreement between Syria and Israel.

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[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

John Major, but Margaret Thatcher was also involved.

In the same way, action not words dealt with the situation in the former Yugoslavia. My hon. Friend is right in his conclusion that, if the situation in north Africa is to be solved in any way acceptably, it will be by action, not by continued talk. The world community should hang its head in shame at the prolonged delay to take practical action on behalf of the people of Libya.

Time is very short, indeed, before it becomes too late, but complacent indifference has long dominated the west’s approach towards Gaddafi’s brutality. Even in recent months, the Home Office has insisted deplorably on sending a Libyan asylum seeker back into Gaddafi’s clutches, just as it insists on sending asylum seekers back to Iran. As usual, the United States, under its present Administration, has been vocal about Libya, but words are easy; action is what counts.

In the case of Israel’s transgressions and brutalities, the Americans have been even more shameful. As is his wont, Obama has been long on self-indulgent, vacuous rhetoric, but absent when it comes to meaningful action. Let us witness the illegal Guantanamo Bay torture camp, remaining open two years after he promised that it would close. “Absent”, though, understates Obama’s pernicious policies. When he sought to wheedle the Israelis into a moratorium on settlement building, he promised that if they paused such building he would veto any Security Council resolutions regarded as critical of Israel. The Israelis ignored him, and still he vetoed the recent, otherwise unanimous, Security Council resolution on settlements.

Yet that United States Administration, if they wished, could bring the Israelis to heel, simply by cutting off the supply of arms and economic aid to that rogue country. Economic sanctions on Israel work, as was demonstrated when President Bush senior forced Yitzhak Shamir to talks in Madrid by suspending loan guarantees.

Certainly, when it comes to rogue regimes, the world is long on denunciations but short on action, and it is important to place on the record those transgressions against international law by a country that has one of the most aggressively right-wing regimes in the world. The Israelis have built an illegal wall through occupied Palestinian territory, in many, many cases cutting Palestinians off from their livelihoods, as I have seen for myself recently. The Israelis’ settlements are, again, a violation of international law, yet they expand them. Again, I recently saw for myself how, in Jerusalem and elsewhere, settlers, with the connivance of the Israeli police, throw Palestinians out of their homes and force them to live in tents. Israel’s hundreds of checkpoints on the west bank make it difficult, and sometimes impossible, for Palestinians to get to workplaces, schools, universities and hospitals. The Jordanian Foreign Minister told me recently how, when he was travelling with the Palestinian President on the west bank in separate cars, he felt obliged to invite the President to travel in his car, because the President’s own car was continually being stopped at checkpoints.

[Mrs Ellman]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

I will proceed for a moment. I think I can anticipate the kind of thing my hon. Friend would say if I were to give way to her. The Israelis kill Palestinians whenever they feel inclined. They have killed two this very week, and the blockade of Gaza—of 1.5 million people—is totally illegal. Rebuilding after the havoc caused by the Israeli invasion has been minimal because of the Israeli embargo on the entrance of many supplies. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency reported to me on the appalling effect on nutrition of the Israeli blockade. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children are growing up malnourished, and that affects both their physical and mental growth. The estimable head of UNRWA, whom I have met several times, says that the alleged easing of the blockade, following the Israeli attack on the flotilla on 31 May, has made the situation worse. He himself has given up and is taking on another assignment outside Palestine. Of course, the Israeli navy does not hesitate to commit piracy in international waters, either.

The Israelis have the most extremist Government in their history, with a Foreign Minister who is actively racist and overtly advocates ethnic cleansing. The Israeli Parliament, elected by proportional representation, which should be a warning to us all about changing electoral systems, now persecutes non-governmental organisations that work for progress and racial harmony.

The Israelis do not believe in a two-state solution and are completely uninterested in any kind of genuine peace process, yet what is being done to curb this regime? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. They get away with it by exploiting guilt over the holocaust. They get away with it by whimpering about their need for security, when they have the strongest armed forces in the region, nuclear weapons and the fourth-strongest armed forces in the world. They get away with it, because Obama, apprehensive about the United States presidential election next year, is scared of Jewish pressure groups in the United States.

The world’s tolerance of the Israeli persecution of 5 million Palestinians is a blot on whatever international morality exists. When Palestinians commit atrocities, as with the murderous attack on the Fogel family of settlers last weekend, there is justifiable anger. Israeli soldiers shot two Palestinian parents dead in front of their children in Gaza, as those children told me: the girl stood there, an Israeli soldier shot her father in the head, and then shot her mother in the head. When things like that happen, nobody bats an eyelid.

We are right to be profoundly concerned about Libya and about the lethal tension in certain Gulf states. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South is absolutely right when he says that if the people of Libya go under, other countries will take that as a lesson that suppressing their populations by force works. This is a very big test for the entire world community. We are right to be vigilant about Tunisia, and right to keep an anxious eye on Egypt to ensure that the revolution there is not baulked or frustrated. But until the world takes action to force Israel to deal justly with the Palestinians, the middle east will remain a turbulent and dangerous region and a blot on all our consciences.

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[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

In 1993, the current President of Israel, Shimon Peres, wrote a visionary book called “The New Middle East”, in which, elated after the signing of the Oslo accords, he wrote about his concept of a community of nations across the middle east. He said that four conditions were required before that could become a reality: political stability, higher living standards, national security and democratisation. I hope that in recent weeks we have seen the beginning of that democratisation spreading across the middle east.

At this stage, none of us can be certain whether that will be successful. However, even now we can see that what has happened over recent weeks and what has come from the hearts of the people of the middle east have given the lie to the commonly accepted view that the only major conflict in the middle east is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that Israel is responsible for all the problems of the middle east. That has never been true and now it evidently is not true.

What is needed to solve the tragic conflict of the clash of nationalisms between the Jewish people in the state of Israel and the Palestinians, two peoples who deserve national determination in a land of their own? First, it is essential that there is a resumption of negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians to create two states. Much has been said about the impact of the WikiLeaks revelations. Those revelations showed how close Palestinians and Israelis came to achieving a durable peace at the Annapolis conference in 2007. It is sad that when those leaks emerged, the Palestinian people realised that they simply did not know what their negotiators were doing. The Israelis were very well aware of what the Israeli negotiators were doing. What happened during the discussions at that conference shows that both sides were, and I hope are, willing to make the compromises necessary for a durable peace.

It is important that it is recognised that Israel has genuine security issues. Two checkpoints were removed last month near Nablus. It is right that checkpoints are removed to support the development of the Palestinian economy, but it also has to be recognised that in the month following the removal of the those checkpoints, there have been two major incidents in or near Nablus. Only last week, the Fogel family were murdered, among them three children. Their throats, including that of a three-month old baby, were slit in cold blood in their home. That was a harsh price to pay. Such atrocities must be recognised, and it must be realised that Israel has genuine security issues. Much has been said of Israel’s action in Gaza in relation to its security. Just in the last few days, the Israeli navy seized a boat that had 50 tonnes of weapons hidden in bags of Syrian lentils. The boat was bound for Gaza and is thought to have come from Iran. That was a genuine security issue.

It is vital that proper recognition is given to the nature of Hamas, which is running Gaza. Hamas’s charter shows clearly what it is about. Its religious convictions mean that it cannot accept the concept of a Jewish state. It displays blatant anti-Semitism, such as in article 22 of its charter, which states that Jews

“amass great and substantive material wealth… With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we…hear about.”

That is just one example of the blatant anti-Semitism of Hamas. That should be recognised by those who talk loosely about “Jewish influence” impeding a solution of the Palestinian-Israeli issue.

Hamas recently attacked a United Nations Relief and Works Agency school because it did not like girls and boys being educated together. It has also said that it will prevent the teaching of the holocaust in Gaza, because it believes that doing so would poison the minds of Palestinians. In recent days the Foreign Press Association has bemoaned the clampdown on the press in Gaza, while Hamas continues to attack those who do not belong to or support its organisation.

In seeking a durable peace, it is also important that we recognise the malevolent influence of Iran in both Lebanon and Gaza. In just the past week the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has stated again that Israel is a “cancerous tumour”. The problem is not just about words, because by arming and training Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran is actively involved in preventing a negotiated peace between Palestinians and Israelis. The involvement of Iran adds to the complexity of the situation and must be recognised when people rush all too quickly, and without much thought, to condemn Israel as the reason why peace has not been reached. That is not the case.

Finally, it is vital that more is done on the domestic scene, and that there is a proper challenge to the hate talk against Jews and Israelis in this country and to the vicious boycott campaigns that are gathering force. The problem shows itself in many ways. It is leading to the attempt to create an atmosphere of intimidation on student campuses, where Jewish students feel increasingly uneasy, and disquiet is being caused among Jewish communities in this country. It is leading to anti-Semitic discourse, as shown so graphically by the invaluable work of the Community Security Trust.

I shall give just one recent example of what has happened. On 2 February, on the campus of Edinburgh university, a meeting was held at which Israeli diplomat Ishmael Khaldi, a Muslim Bedouin, attempted to hold a discussion. There was organised opposition to that meeting, and the microphone was snatched from him. He was forced to abandon the meeting, against cries of “Nazi”. That is both absurd and deplorable. That demonstration, like many others, was organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, an organisation that does not wish to see peace but wishes to sow the seeds of dissension. One of the consequences is that we are being taken further and further away from peace, and the seeds of anti-Semitism are being sown.

It is vital that efforts are maintained to find a solution to this complex problem. The two peoples have a right to a homeland, and the Jews in Israel and the Palestinians have a right to their land. All efforts must be made to bring both sides back to the negotiating table on the basis of creating two states. All the key issues—borders, refugees and the need to share Jerusalem—must be resolved around the negotiating table. I applaud all efforts that bring that situation about.