Israel and the Peace Process
Debate between Michael Connarty and Bob Blackman(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Bob Blackman
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. It is clear that we need to break the logjam. Mention was made of the peace process in Ireland, and I certainly never thought we would see a peace process there in my lifetime. I welcome what has been done there so that we can have a proper democracy and a proper arrangement between people on that island.
Similarly, we have to break the logjam between Israel and Palestine, but there has to be good faith on both sides. As my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) rightly reminded us, Israel has, over the years, agreed to put the issue of settlements on the table. To get peace with Egypt, there was an agreement to remove settlements, and they were removed; to get peace with Gaza, settlements were removed; and to get peace with the west bank, settlements were removed. The Egyptian peace treaty was highly successful, but such success has not, sadly, been the case in Gaza, and that is a problem for the Israeli Government.
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
I do not know how anybody can say that the issue of the settlements in the west bank was somehow solved by a treaty. When was the hon. Gentleman actually in the west bank? Every time I have been there, the settlements have increased, and the settlers’ violence against innocent Palestinians has increased exponentially. What land is the hon. Gentleman talking about? It is not the one I visit.
Bob Blackman
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. I was in the west bank last October—
Bob Blackman
I saw many settlements. I also saw how the Palestinian people have been sold out by their own lawyers—their own people. Palestinians have sold land to the Israelis and given them the opportunity to build houses on it. They had claims over that land, but, unfortunately, they sold them. They went through the courts, and their lawyers sold them out. It is difficult for someone who has been through a legal process to complain when it has gone against them.
Where we go now is quite clear. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other groups oppose Israel’s right to exist and they refuse to accept the Quartet principles. Until such time as they openly say, “We accept Israel’s right to exist”, no meaningful peace talks can take place. That is where the British Government have a clear duty. They must ensure that pressure is put on the state of Israel and the Palestinians to enter negotiations in line with President Obama’s excellent speech setting out how the peace process could proceed. The Israeli Government were quite keen to commit to that up front, but the Palestinians seem to want to delay; they do not seem to want to enter talks. They must understand that unless they enter talks rapidly, the prospects for a two-state solution will diminish by the day, and we could end up with a three-state solution—the state of Israel, a Palestinian state in Gaza and a Palestinian state on the west bank.