Israel and Palestinian Talks

Louise Ellman Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

I want to focus my comments today on Gaza, which is the world’s largest open-air prison. Of the 2 million people crammed into the 139 square miles of Gaza, more than a third are under 15 and almost half are under 25. In their short lives, they have seen a lot—a child born 10 years ago in Gaza has already lived through three wars, in which one in five of those who died were children—and their future looks bleak. According to the UN, we are seeing a process of “de-development” in Gaza, so that by 2020 the strip may well be technically uninhabitable. Some 96% of groundwater in Gaza is unfit for human consumption and the sea is polluted with sewage. Power shortages mean that were it not for the increasingly hard-to-obtain fuel that runs emergency generators, hospitals would go dark. That would mean up to 40 surgical operation theatres, 11 obstetric theatres, five haemodialysis centres and hospital emergency rooms serving almost 4,000 patients a day being forced to halt critical services. As always, it is the children who are hit hardest. In April, a five-year-old girl with cerebral palsy died while waiting for a permit to travel to a hospital in East Jerusalem—she had already been waiting for two months. It seems that the bureaucracy of the blockade held out for longer than that little girl’s health could.

Meanwhile, in Israel we see a Prime Minister who is driven not by concern for his nation, but by concern for the retention of his office. As yesterday’s approval of more than 1,000 illegal settlement units in East Jerusalem shows, we see an Israeli Government who are undermining the integrity of a future Palestinian state and, in doing so, are undermining themselves and their own security.

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

My hon. Friend draws out clearly the human tragedy of what is happening today in Gaza, but is he concerned that Hamas has recently rebuilt 15 of its terrorist tunnels, which are being prepared for Hamas to launch attacks on the civilians of Israel?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I accept that there is an unacceptable cycle of violence, and clearly all parties in this conflict need to find a solution, but I also feel that in the current circumstances Israel holds the whip hand and it is up to Israel to make that first move.

The fact is that there can be no security without peace and no peace without security. A two-state solution is essential to peace. I do not make that point from a partisan perspective; rather, I echo the sentiments of the former head of Mossad, Mr Tamir Pardo. Just two months ago, lamenting Netanyahu’s apparent rejection of a two-state solution, he said:

“Israel faces one existential threat”,

and it is not external—Iran or Hezbollah—but “internal”, the result of a divisiveness in Israel resulting from a Government who have

“decided to bury our heads deep in the sand, to preoccupy ourselves with alternative facts and flee from reality”.

--- Later in debate ---

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

The Israeli-Palestinian dispute is an ongoing tragedy. The Jewish and Palestinian people are entitled to self-determination. Zionism is the movement for Jewish self-determination in the state of Israel, and it derives from a centuries-old Jewish attachment to, and living in, the middle east, in what is now the state of Israel. I abhor the use in certain quarters of the term “Zionism” as a term of abuse; that must be stopped, and it must be stopped wherever it comes from.

The only way this tragic situation can be resolved is through direct negotiations between the two parties to form two states—Israel and Palestinian—that are mutually recognised, with major international economic support for the new Palestinian state. Issues such as permanent borders, security, refugees and the status of Jerusalem can be resolved only as part of an end-of-conflict deal reached through that direct negotiation. A stable agreement would be much more likely if it was part of the renewed Arab peace initiative. There has been a great deal of movement and change recently across the middle east, and the renewed Arab peace initiative is extremely important and must be taken up.

The barriers to securing that peace between Israelis and Palestinians are significant on both sides. They include the question of settlements; I agree that settlements are a barrier, but they are not the only barrier, and they are barrier that can be resolved. It must be remembered that Israel withdrew from its settlements in Sinai in 1978 as part of the peace agreement that exists to this day, and it withdrew from its 21 settlements in Gaza in 2005, when the settlers were forced to withdraw. It was anticipated at that stage that that would be followed by peace in Gaza and peaceful relations with Israel. Instead, the terrorist organisation Hamas overthrew the Palestinian Authority and has since been running Gaza, much to the detriment of its people.

The Palestinian refusal to accept Israel’s legitimacy as a majority Jewish state, firmly part of the middle east, is also a barrier to peace, and it is high time that the Palestinians changed that position.

Incitement and terrorism are also barriers. Since 2015, as hon. Members have already mentioned, Palestinian terrorism has resulted in 180 stabbings, 150 shootings, and 58 ramming attacks with vehicles, causing 50 civilian deaths and the wounding of more than 759 Israelis. That is not the way to secure peace, and this incitement must stop. Naming Palestinian Authority schools after terrorists also undermines Israeli confidence.

I must also refer to Iran’s activities in the region, particularly in supporting Hezbollah, urging and encouraging it to set up new bases in Lebanon ready to attack Israel. Again, I deplore the humanitarian situation in Gaza, but Hamas’s rebuilding of 15 terrorist tunnels to launch an attack on Israel does not bode well for peace.

However, these barriers to peace can be overcome. There is a vision to be had—the vision put forward by the late President of Israel, Shimon Peres, who spoke about the future of the middle east, with two nations, Israel and Palestine, working together as part of a new middle east. Let us hope that this debate contributes to securing that end.