Israel and the Peace Process

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

No, I will not.

Britain was involved in the original partition and in the Balfour declaration, so we have a duty to help promote peace. That means suggesting to Israel that leaving the United Nations Human Rights Council, running away from international institutions and opposing Palestinian membership of the UN are hardly an indication of a process of peace, or of recognition of or respect for international law. They are very much the opposite.

If Israel cannot abide by international law and if it continues to abuse human rights and imprison Palestinians, why is the European Union-Israel trade agreement carrying on as normal, as though there is nothing wrong? That agreement has a human rights clause and that clause should be respected. We should, therefore, enter negotiations and tell Israel that if it cannot abide by the trade agreement’s human rights clause, the agreement itself will be suspended.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Walker. In the few minutes that I have, I will first declare an interest. My entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests notes that I went to Egypt last March with the Council for European Palestinian Relations.

My hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) has usefully introduced the debate and I hope that we will have an opportunity to discuss the issue at greater length on the Floor of the House. The picture painted by my hon. Friend and Government Members, however, is not one that those of us who regularly visit Gaza, the west bank and Israeli Arabs in Israel would recognise. The actual picture is one of occupation.

[Mr Offord]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Slaughter]

I will give way once, and that will be it.

[Mr Offord]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. When he went to Gaza, did he visit the Gaza city shopping centre, where many of the goods are provided by Israel at a much cheaper price than those coming through the tunnels from Egypt?

[Mr Slaughter]

I am not sure that that is relevant; I wish I had not given way.

The Palestinian people experience occupation, persecution and discrimination. I wish that some of the rights that Israelis give to their own citizens—some hon. Members have rightly mentioned them—were also provided for the Palestinian people. When considering this issue, the judgment of some hon. Members seems to lapse in a way that it would not in relation to other issues.

My hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) has given the example of Operation Cast Lead, in which 1,500 people, the majority of them civilians—many of them women and children—were massacred by bombardment from sea, land and air. I visited Gaza two to three weeks after that happened and saw the devastation that it wrought.

Over the 20 years since Oslo, the number of settlements has doubled from 250,000 to 500,000, irrespective of how the Palestinians were negotiating or of which parties were in government.