Middle East and North Africa

Richard Graham Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to join today’s debate. The plaudits heaped on my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) have been considerable. I will not add to those, because he already knows of my respect for him. May I also warmly welcome my former colleague at the Foreign Office to his new place as Minister with responsibility for the middle east? He comes to the fray at a difficult and sensitive time, and we should all wish him good luck in his difficult task.

Today we debate a region that is large; its overall situation is dire and the scale of its humanitarian disaster is enormous. Britain’s contribution to dealing with some of the regional humanitarian crises is considerable. Let me focus, in the brief minutes available, on the situation in Gaza and Israel. My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), who I think has just left, referred earlier to an Israeli policy of “muscular enlightenment”. I have huge respect for my hon. Friend, who has led the way on several enlightened policies adopted by the Government, but I do not think that that phrase is his happiest one. Nor do I think that it is a good description of current Israeli policy.

The truth is that those who make play of the cynicism of Hamas in putting military assets beside, or even inside, schools and hospitals, to explain civilian deaths, need to provide a compelling explanation of how four children on a beach represent a threat, let alone a target. Those who make play of being a democracy answerable to the people need to be able to explain how immediate military action is taken, without charges, against those suspected of murdering three Jewish teenagers, when progress in resolving the murder and burning of a Palestinian teenager so soon afterwards looks very slow. Those who make play of the rule of law must explain what is legal about the entirely illegal settlements, the continued appropriation of traditional Palestinian grazing lands in the west bank, and the destruction of Palestinian homes, particularly in East Jerusalem. Those who make play of shared values cannot be surprised when British citizens, including Jews, who see the level of apartheid on the ground in cities such as Hebron say that that does not reflect our values.

Before anyone leaps to conclusions, my remarks so far are not the opening salvo in a pro-Hamas speech—far from it. Hamas’s continued commitment to the complete destruction of Israel, and its importation of military hardware from Iran, whose leaders share similar views, is intolerable. None of us who live in this country has to deal with the concept of a neighbour whose approach to us starts with the idea of our complete destruction. However, the violence and deaths on each side will achieve little. As the Israeli ambassador recognised the other day, there is no real victory to be had. When a truce is struck, as surely it will be—we must pray for it to happen as soon as possible—Hamas’s military capacity will have been significantly damaged; but its recruitment of enraged young teenagers in Gaza will probably expand, and the emotional support for it, from British Muslims and others, is likely to increase. We will have to see what the impact will be on international support, such as further Palestinian efforts to involve the International Criminal Court.

That will leave us all frustrated, though not, I believe, half as frustrated as the many peaceful citizens whom I have met both in Israel and in Gaza. I therefore think that the Minister is likely to face more pressure, first to support sanctions as described by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) against Israeli businesses based in illegal settlements; and secondly to support with intensity all efforts to get the peace talks started again. Thirdly, perhaps, there will be a question of pressure in some of the international areas that I alluded to. The months ahead, dealing with his new brief, will be difficult for the Minister. We can only hope that we will all try to stand back from being pro-Palestine, pro-Gaza, pro-Hamas or pro-Israel, and look at the issue as a monumental humanitarian disaster, from which few of us emerge with great credit.