Occupied Palestinian Territories: Israeli Settlements

Philippa Whitford Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burden]

It is right that the long-standing policy of this House and of Britain to support the two-state solution endures, but let us make no mistake: the chances of that solution are disappearing.

[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Richard Burden]

I am afraid I cannot give way any more as there is not enough time. I am sure the hon. Lady will have her chance to speak a little later.

What John Kerry was getting at was that if we end up with the de facto annexation of the west bank, that gives Israel a choice. It can say either that everybody living there should have the vote and rights equal to those of its own citizens, or that they do not. If it says that they do have those rights, the future of Israel with a Jewish majority is at an end. If it says that they do not have those rights, Israel can no longer claim to be a democracy. Not only that, but if there is de facto annexation while Israel maintains a system of laws and controls that discriminate against the majority of people who live in the west bank and denies them basic democratic rights, what term can we use to decide what we are left with but a form of apartheid?

If one goes and looks at the reality of life for Palestinians on the west bank, it is difficult not to come away with the impression that what is happening there is already a creeping culture of apartheid. Is it any wonder, then, that if one talks to Palestinians today—particularly young Palestinians who have never experienced anything other than the grinding weight of occupation—they increasingly say that they see the international community’s constant going on about a two-state solution as a cruel deception for them and their lives? They say, “Actually, we are now getting to the stage where we don’t care how many states there are. We just want it ensured that we have equal rights with everybody else.”

We are left with choices about what we do about this situation, and the right hon. Member for New Forest West was right to put this to the Minister. We can either continue with the mantra that we support a two-state solution in theory, or we can do something to save that solution. I have two questions for the Minister. First, what actions—not simply words—are the UK Government prepared to take to differentiate settlements in the occupied west bank from Israel itself? Secondly, as settlements are illegal, should not there be a clear message from the Government that any trade preferences, either before or after Brexit, do not apply to settlements, and that this will be enforced? UK businesses should not collude with illegality through any financial dealings with settlements or through the import of settlement goods to the UK.

I conclude by echoing a point made by the right hon. Gentleman. Five years ago, William Hague, the then Foreign Secretary, said:

“We reserve the right to recognise a Palestinian state bilaterally at a moment of our choosing and when it can best help to bring about peace.”—[Official Report, 9 November 2011; Vol. 535, c. 290.]

In October 2014, this House asked the Government to act on that, so does the Minister agree that, with the two-state solution that we all support under threat like never before, now is the time to act on that bilateral recognition? We have to ask ourselves: if not now, when; and if not now, are not those Palestinians who believe that we talk a good story but do nothing to end their misery actually right?

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[Crispin Blunt]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, who is such a distinguished addition to the Foreign Affairs Committee. As he knows, we have announced an inquiry into British policy towards the middle east peace process, and it is an issue with which we will engage in detail over the months ahead.

[Dr Whitford]

Having been in Gaza a quarter of a century ago when the Oslo process started, I have to ask whether we are not now in a situation in which, if we do not recognise and enforce international law, we send out the message to other countries in the world that if they cover something in concrete, we will let them get away with it. If that is so, we will pay the price.

[Crispin Blunt]

I agree with the hon. Lady. The implications of these settlements are catastrophic. One should not belittle the seriousness of the issue. As I was saying, settlements are illegal under international law for a reason. One cannot conquer someone else’s territory and then colonise it. The end of that era was codified in the Geneva convention in 1949, and our experience since has been of decolonisation. That it should have happened over the past 50 years at the hands of a nation born out of the moral authority of the appalling treatment of the Jews in Europe over centuries that culminated in the holocaust is deeply troubling for the admirers of the heroic generation that founded the state of Israel.

We rightly talk about all that should be celebrated in Israel, which is often described as a beacon of our shared values in a troubled region, but the truth is that Palestinians, the Arab world and the wider international community, including our own population, increasingly see Israel through the clouded prism of the settlements.

Within Israel, there is no consensus on settlements. The recent regularisation law has raised a particularly rancorous debate. It was Benny Begin, the son of a former Prime Minister and a Likud Member of the Knesset, who dubbed the law as the “robbery law”, while the head of the Zionist Union, Isaac Herzog, called it “a threat” to Israel. It is worth remembering that Parliaments cannot make legal what international law proscribes.

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[Ian Austin]

That is completely right. That is why the Palestinian Authority’s denial of Israel’s right to exist will not build the trust that we have discussed here this afternoon. Nor will the incentivising of terrorism through the payment of salaries to convicted terrorists.

[Dr Philippa Whitford]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ian Austin]

Not at the moment.

Does anyone seriously believe that the settlements are a bigger barrier to the peace process than Hamas’s terrorism and extremism? Its charter sets out its goals with an explicit rejection of not just Israel’s right to exist, but the very idea of a peace process, which it says would involve the surrender of “Islamic land”. This is an organisation that spends millions, and uses building materials, which could build hospitals, schools and homes, for tunnels and terror. It pioneered suicide bombing in the middle east, and then celebrated the murder of Israelis in bars and restaurants.

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[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)]

As other Members have been declaring interests, may I say that I spent two weeks last Easter with Medical Aid for Palestinians as a breast surgeon working in East Jerusalem, as well as working and teaching in Gaza? As many hon. Members know, in 1981 and 1982, I worked for 18 months as a surgeon in Gaza, so I still know the place quite well. I echo the comment by the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) about Israeli doctors treating people from all communities. That is true, but often we could not get patients to Israeli doctors in Hadassah hospital because of curfews. I had patients who died in ambulances because of curfews. I had a 10-year-old boy turned back at Erez for us to try to work out how to get him through the night, even though we did not have the equipment.

Having worked there at the start of the Oslo accord, I was really depressed when I was there last Easter to see that, a quarter of a century on, we are further from peace than we were that morning. By the end of the day of the Madrid peace conference, despite the violence that had happened on the day, I saw young men with olive branches on armoured cars. They believed that their lives were going to change. A quarter of a century later, the international community has let them down.

Some 1.8 million people live in the tiny strip of Gaza. It is becoming unviable. It is pouring sewage into the sea and the water is undrinkable. It will be unviable by the mid-2020s. The west bank is being put in the same situation by the expansion of settlements. It is not just the settlements, but the walls that separate people from their farmland or sources of water. It is settler roads that people are not allowed to cross even to get to their olive groves or water sources.

What is the vision for the west bank? Is it that Palestinians will simply live on reservations, as happened to native Americans centuries ago? What is the vision for the outcome that even the Israeli Government want? The only thing we have is international law, and if we do not stick to that, we will have no position of right for other people who do the wrong thing. It has been said that international players should not be involved—that it should just be the Palestinians and Israelis—but that is a totally unbalanced conversation. Northern Ireland had the UK Government, the Irish Government and the American Government to bring the peace process to success, and we need to be involved.

Everyone has said that they believe in a two-state solution, so how bizarre is it that we recognise only one of those states? If we do not take action to avoid profit from settlements and annexation by concrete, we will be answerable.