Israel and Palestinian Talks

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry]

I believe that all of us have been saying for some time that we know what a peace settlement ought to look like and what elements need to be stopped. We know that we have to stop the downward spiral of illegality, violence and blame, and that the further down we go, the more difficult it is to climb out again. That is why what I want to do in my speech is to address what the British can do.

As a friend of Israel and of Palestine, I am appalled at the cycle of violence that has become so familiar that it is no longer covered by our country’s news broadcasts, let alone in some parties’ manifestos. I am equally appalled when the reaction of some, on both sides of the debate, is not to prioritise stopping the cycle of violence, but to believe that we somehow have to pick a side to support, denying the reality that in a terrible conflict such as this, no side can win, and both sides can certainly continue to lose.

What are the Government doing to bring the cycle of violence to an end? What steps is the Minister taking with Palestinian leaders with regard to: ending and condemning all the acts of terrorist violence against Israel, whether using knives, vehicles or rockets; ending and condemning all incitement to violence, including their own; and, at long last, recognising the state of Israel’s right to exist? What pressure is he also putting on the Israeli Government to end the forced displacement of Palestinians from their homes, to end the building of new settlements and to commit to the dismantling of existing ones? Ultimately, what are they doing to end the blockade of the occupied territories and allow the Palestinian people to find permanent homes and proper jobs?

While we are discussing the issue of security, it would be remiss of me not to ask the Minister when we can expect the publication of the report into the foreign funding of extremist groups in the UK. We all know that this is a central issue when it comes to Israel and Palestine. The funding network is vital for Hamas and other extremist groups. We need to look into the issue and understand it. Yet, when the Foreign Secretary was asked about the report on 6 June, he said that he would

“dig it out and have a look at it if that’s what you would like me to do”.

Well, we do not want him to “dig it out”. It should never have been buried in the first place. We want the Government to publish it and act on it. We want to know—indeed, we have a right to know—how their policy towards Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other countries that may be funding extremism is being informed by that report. We want to know and we can see no reason why we should not be told. Will the Minister start by telling us today which countries the report implicates? Are sovereign Governments to blame, or simply wealthy private financiers? What are the Government’s ties with those Governments and individuals? Ultimately, why has that report not been published?

Let me turn to the importance of clarity and consistency, among other things, in relation to the middle east. In Labour’s manifesto, we once more called for a two-state solution, an end to illegal settlements and a return to meaningful negotiations to achieve a diplomatic resolution. None of those things should be difficult or controversial. Indeed, they have been staples of UK Government policy and successive party manifestos on both sides going back to the aftermath of the second world war. But, as I have already said, we are now at a crossroads. The Government do not know whether Britain’s long-standing policies on the middle east are still consistent with our equally strong desire to work closely with the United States to try to co-ordinate policy, because we do not know what the policy of the United States is. The Minister welcomed President Trump’s engagement on the issue, but I note that he did not give us any indication of what Donald Trump’s policy on the middle east is, and that confusion is not restricted to Britain.

Two weeks ago, the Israeli Defence Minister said that there is an agreed level of new settlement construction that the Trump Administration have said they will support. He said that

“they respect our approach and our vision regarding…settlements”,

but last week the Israeli Education Minister said the opposite, suggesting that Trump’s approach to settlement building was a disappointment and that

“he’s…going down the same unsuccessful path that his predecessors did”.

So what is the truth? The Israelis do not know. The Palestinians do not know. And I bet a fair amount that, although the Minister of State welcomes the engagement, he really does not know what Donald Trump’s policy is. Depressingly, I am pretty sure that Donald Trump does not have the foggiest idea either.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

I was on a cross-party delegation to the Holy Land in January. Does my right hon. Friend share the concern of some of the Palestinians we saw—Christians as well as Muslims—at the involvement and financial interests of some of Donald Trump’s acolytes in settlement construction? In the popular imagination, settlements are maybe just a few shacks on a hill, but Ma'ale Adumim, which we saw, has 37,500 people in it—it looks like a pleasant American commuter town, with five swimming pools and all sorts of other things—and that makes the geographically viable Palestinian state that might one day come even more difficult.

[Emily Thornberry]

The difficulty is that, certainly during the campaign, and in the early days of his—I think the word is—Administration, the statements Donald Trump has made in relation to Israel have been very alarming for those who support a two-state solution.

The point I am trying to make is that Britain has always wanted to be able to co-ordinate its foreign policy with the Americans, and this Government are so weak and wobbly that they feel they have to be in lockstep with Donald Trump. That is where we have the difficulty in relation to middle east policy, and that may be one of the reasons why the Foreign Secretary will not come to the Dispatch Box and why Israel and Palestine were not mentioned in the Tory manifesto.

Let me develop my argument further. One thing we know for sure is that waiting for Donald Trump to make up his mind is no way for the British Government to decide their foreign policy. So let me ask the Minister of State today not just to do what every Foreign Minister has done for the last seven decades and to make it clear that we want to see a peaceful process of negotiation towards a two-state solution, including an end to all acts of terrorism towards Israel and an end to all illegal settlements, but to make it clear that that will be our position regardless of what America finally decides is its policy stance. If Donald Trump departs from those long-standing policies, will the British Government condemn him? That is what they should be prepared to do.

If the Minister of State will not say those things today, we can only come to two equally unpalatable and pitiful conclusions: either the Government have abdicated Britain’s leadership role and are simply waiting to take their cues from Trump Tower, or they see no point in putting pressure on the Trump Administration, because they know they will simply be ignored—just like they were over climate change.

Let me turn to the final point on this issue. The Labour manifesto said simply and clearly:

“A Labour government will immediately recognise the state of Palestine.”

Six years ago, the then Foreign Secretary said:

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

Let me, then, urge the Minister and the Government to seize the moment we are now offered by the Balfour centenary to throw our support behind Palestinian statehood, just as we threw our support 100 years ago behind Israeli statehood.

If the question is whether this is the moment when recognising statehood will help bring about peace, I would simply ask, in Primo Levi’ s words, “If not now, when?” When violence and extremism are rising on all sides, when hard-liners are assuming increasing control, when the humanitarian crisis is getting even worse, and when all eyes are on an American President whose grand plan for peace exists only in his mind, we need the British Government, more than ever, to show some leadership and to show the way towards peace—and recognition of Palestinian statehood would be one significant step in that direction. So will the Minister of State tell the House whether such a move is under consideration? If it is not, what will it take for the Government to act? The right hon. Gentleman will recall that in 2014, MPs on both sides of the House voted in favour of recognition of Palestine by a majority of 262.

I have mentioned the 100th anniversary of the Balfour declaration.

--- Later in debate ---

[Crispin Blunt]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I am trying to make precisely the point that we all too often indulge in reinforcing our own respective positions.

No single problem is causing the stalemate, and there is therefore no single solution. Neither party holds a monopoly of power to make peace, and all sides have the capability to spoil it. Palestinians have been betrayed by years of factionalised leaderships that have failed to meet their people’s needs—from the basic governance necessary to live in dignity to the realisation of their legitimate political ambitions for self-determination. Now, possibly more than at any time in their history, the Palestinian people are trapped deep within a structural crisis of leadership, with almost all levels of democratic activity and elections suspended. This augurs badly for any efforts to address issues such as the incitement or commission of violence, and it denies Palestinians the opportunity to present their cause with the legal and moral authority that it deserves.

On the other hand, the continuation of the settlement programme, in contravention of international law—I welcome the Minister’s restatement of the British position—undermines the prospects for a viable Palestinian state in the future. Settlements are the physical embodiment of conflict between competing narratives of nationalism, in the context of a historic tragedy that has pitted entire peoples against each other in their respective searches for nationhood. Across the canvas of a biblical landscape, settlements paint a picture of a zero-sum paradigm from which no party has found the political will to escape. Aside from the practical impact that settlements have on the viability of a future Palestinian state, settlements and the multifaceted injustices that they represent are salt in the open wound of their collective dispossession.

Both sides complain that they lack partners for peace on the opposite side of the negotiating table. However, they all too often fail to think about what they themselves could do to nurture such partners. Any colleagues who have been able to spend time engaging with broader Israeli and Palestinian society will know that there are such partners, and they share many of the frustrations at their mutual predicament. These people need to be empowered to win their respective arguments in their societies. The Minister will recall that we both met Gideon Sa’ar during the election campaign. He took time out from frontline Israeli politics—he is a potential successor to Benjamin Netanyahu as the leader of Likud—to go to Northern Ireland with an organisation called Forward Thinking to see the peace and the resolution that we have made, and are trying to make, to the conflict there. He was prepared to learn lessons, and it is a sign of hope when Israeli leaders are taking time out to go and see routes to conflict resolution. We need to be able to do that with political leaders on both sides.

[Dr Huq]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?