Palestinian Resolution (United Nations)

Simon Hughes Excerpts

Wednesday 28th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

After my discussions with Secretary Clinton yesterday, I think there is a good understanding of the strength of view across the world, including in countries such as ours as well as in other European countries, and of the urgency of the matter. It is very important for that understanding to be shared across the American system. I have worked closely with Secretary Clinton over the past two and a half years, but she intends to depart office as Secretary of State in the coming weeks. This will be the No. 1 item we discuss with the incoming Secretary of State of the United States; indeed, I have already discussed it with some of the people who might become Secretary of State. It has been prominent among our discussions with President Obama, and the Prime Minister and I have both put the point strongly to the President. The understanding is there in the United States but we now need to help them translate it into real action.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

I pay a great tribute to the Secretary of State for not only ensuring that this is a UK Government foreign policy priority but trying to ensuring that it becomes a second-term American Administration foreign policy priority. On the difficult issue he has addressed of the ICC jurisdiction, I understand exactly what he is trying to do. Is it his hope not that the ICC should not have a jurisdiction but that if the Palestinians and Israelis come to the table for peace talks, the question of the ICC can be parked for a time so that the attempt to get a peace deal is not skewered by sending the question to courts that would take much longer to resolve it?

[Mr Hague]

My right hon. Friend is right, of course, about the second-term priorities. Given the urgency of the situation and given that from January the Israeli elections will have taken place and the United States will be at the beginning of a second-term Administration, if we are not going to address and resolve the problem then, when on earth will we ever do so? We see this question as very important for the re-elected US Administration. He is also right about the ICC and that is what we are saying. We are saying not that anyone should be exempt from the ICC for the long-term future, but that since a negotiation must succeed everybody has to accept some things that are temporary or unpleasant. We had our own experience of that—many hon. Members have much experience of it—in the Northern Ireland peace process. We had to do things we were very reluctant to do but that were necessary to bring about a settlement. That is true in the middle east, too.