Middle East

Tania Mathias Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)]

I, too, commend my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee) for securing this important debate, and I was pleased to hear what the Minister said, particularly concerning funding for diplomatic contacts.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) spoke about the UK’s role in the middle east over many centuries. I wish to focus particularly on the role that is nearly 100 years old—a role that started with a declaration from the UK Government that said:

“Her Majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

The same declaration also said that it was

“clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of non-Jewish communities in Palestine”.

My point is that our role then decreased in 1948, and many people in that area—Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians —would say that the UK Government walked away and

“left the key under the mat”.

Today, we have been involved in action in Libya and Iraq and we may have more action coming up in Syria. My plea is that our role and responsibility must be future-proofed—it must be long term. What this means is that our role involves what some people talk of as jaw-jaw and not war-war—and I say that it is jaw-jaw that is continuous. I believe that the UK’s role has been lacking in the Palestine-Israel area, and that the UK must continue to negotiate and have diplomacy. We must still be talking about the borders of Palestine-Israel. We must still be talking about the settlements. We must still be talking about security for Palestine and Israel.

We must talk about refugees’ rights to return, which I have raised with the Minister with responsibility for Syrian refugees. I particularly asked what was happening for the Palestinian refugees who are in the Syrian camps. Can they go home; will there be homes built for them in Palestine? We must, of course, also still talk about Jerusalem. The UK’s role and responsibility in the middle east must be long term and ongoing. Contrary to what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell), this is not a sideshow. There can be no long-term peace and stability in the region until there is peace and stability for Palestine and Israel.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy). She made a good speech on Iran and the circumstances from which she originally came. She knows the subject extremely well. I also commend my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee) for securing this debate. I well remember when he presented his proposal for it to the Backbench Business Committee. His key point was that we should be looking for a strategy for the middle east, and that we should debate the role of the British Government internationally rather than concentrating only on one area in the region. I believe that many Members share my concern that for far too long we have made interventions in individual countries rather than looking at a broad range of strategic views across the region and deciding what the British role should be.

We are on the cusp of a decision on whether we should intervene in Syria. I am grateful to the Prime Minister for setting out a clear strategy and explaining what we want to achieve from an intervention against ISIL. However, the question remains: what would happen after ISIL was defeated? Where would the replacement Government come from? Where is the alternative view? For far too long, we have looked at countries right across the middle east simply as lines on a map that were drawn after the great war and the second world war, instead of seeing them as groups of tribes and villages that have come together in some form of amalgam or through being dominated by a dictator and his or her forces who required the people to follow a particular line.

Let us look at what we did during the 1980s. At that time, Britain had a settled policy. We balanced Iraq and Iran in the region. We should remember that more people died in the war between those two countries than in the entire great war. Under that policy, we armed Iraq in order to combat Iran. Then, however, we intervened in Iraq, took away its Government and unbalanced the region. We are now experiencing the consequences of that intervention, in Iraq, in Iran and across the wider middle east.

Then we had the Arab spring, which had a great swath of democracy at its heart. Everyone dreamed that it would be the beginning of a great movement for change. Sadly, wherever we got democracy, we have now seen dictatorship, war, civil war and further interventions right across the region, and we need to look at that. We have seen the refugee crisis that has erupted as a result of the civil war in Syria, but that is as nothing to the refugee crisis that will be generated unless we address climate change. The region will become uninhabitable, water will be non-existent and food will be impossible to obtain, and we will then bear enormous consequences as a result. It is therefore appropriate to examine that as a particular issue.

Other Members have alluded to the ongoing problems between Israel and Palestine, the area that has failed to be addressed. I speak as someone who has been on visits to Israel and the west bank with both the Conservative Friends of Israel and the Palestinian Return Centre to see both sides of the argument. One depressing thing about the Palestinian representation is how badly they have been let down by their leadership and by their legal advisers, and how they have failed to see any progress towards achieving what they all want to achieve, which is an outright country—a state that is independent and secure.

Israel has to take steps to maintain security. In 2014, Israel, whose territory was subjected to more than 5,000 rockets and bombs sent from Gaza, had to take action against Hamas and the Hamas dictatorship that is misleading Gaza. The reality is that even now Hamas is diverting the international aid that Britain and other countries are putting in to rebuild the terror tunnels it began. Hamas is also utilising the money to fuel hate-filled lessons in ideology in that region, and is preventing the international aid from coming in. It has even prevented the setting up of a water desalination plant that would enable all the people of Gaza to enjoy clean drinking water at first hand. That is extremely regrettable.

[Dr Mathias]

I agree that the rebuilding in Gaza is crucial. Will my hon. Friend join me in asking the Minister whether there is a way we can monitor it, through our staff or UN staff on the ground?

[Bob Blackman]

It is key that we monitor what is done. Clearly, Hamas is still using its power to divert aid and prevent ordinary Palestinians from receiving the aid that they so desperately need. It is a scandal that, more than a year after the conflict, people who were made homeless as a result of that conflict are still homeless in Gaza. Hamas and its distorted ideology prevent progress from happening.

We see a series of other potential conflicts to come. In Lebanon, Hezbollah has reinforced its forces as a result of being a proxy for Iran, and many hundreds of thousands of rockets are now aimed at Israel, in order to destabilise the region. In Syria, Assad’s regime directly assists Hamas and Hezbollah in rearming. We cannot deal with these countries in isolation.

I end as I began by saying that what we need in our country is a clear strategy for our policy in the middle east. I congratulate our Government on bringing forward additional resources to target that strategy, on creating a Foreign and Commonwealth Office with more Ministers in it than was the case under the last Government and on putting in place a proper strategy.

Chagos Islands

Tania Mathias Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)]

I, too, commend the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Dr Monaghan) for bringing this very important matter to our attention. I also commend my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) for his contribution. I just want to add that I consider it a gross injustice to remove 1,500 people against their will. It is a gross injustice then to have an airbase, with a very questionable history in this century, on their land. It is a gross injustice to create a marine protected area without consulting the people who should be there, in their homeland.

I did not know about this matter when I was younger; I wish I had known. I owe thanks to my constituent, George Beckmann, who brought it to my attention. I am honouring a promise that I gave him as a candidate that I would stand up for the Chagos islanders. You deserve your home; you deserve reparation and an apology; and I am very privileged to be in the same room as you today.

Arms Sales (Human Rights)

Tania Mathias Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)]

I applaud the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) for securing the debate. I would like to declare that I am a member of Amnesty International and of the British Medical Association.

I want to mention some points that have not been raised. First, I want to honour the Londoners in the docklands area who peacefully protest against the ExCel arms fair, and the religious leaders who come every two years to pray peacefully in that area. We are talking about the human rights of Londoners, who get off the Docklands Light Railway near the ExCeL centre and see murals commemorating the destruction and civilian loss of the second world war. I do not believe that it is an appropriate location for the arms fair. As Amnesty has reported, shockingly, companies at the 2013 arms fair were selling cluster bombs and equipment for torture. I am not reassured that this year’s arms fair will not involve the sale of cluster bombs, torture equipment, depleted uranium, phosphorous or other items that I do not believe to be ethical, which no Londoner would wish to have sold in this area.

On Bahrain, I strongly urge the Minister and any members of the Government who are going to ExCeL this year to ask for the release of Dr Ali Al-Ekri. He is a consultant paediatric orthopaedic surgeon, and he should not be imprisoned. The only criminals in the situation are the Bahraini Government, because medical neutrality is a fundamental right.

Iran: Nuclear Deal

Tania Mathias Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Our negotiations have been about the nuclear deal. We have deliberately not widened them to make them into a negotiation about Iran’s activities in the region, which we view negatively, or its human rights record, which we also view negatively. As I have said in the House many times before, the only way in which we can have any influence over what people do is to engage with them. By re-engaging, as this agreement will allow us to do, we will have a greater ability to influence Iran’s behaviour in the future, and as I said in my statement, we will continue to target Iran’s appalling human rights record.

[Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)]

In view of the indefinite monitoring and transparency measures, may I return to the questions asked by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) and my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon)? When my right hon. Friend visits Israel, will he ask its Prime Minister to consider this a present chance for peace, not an historic mistake?

[Mr Hammond]

As my hon. Friend would expect, I shall put the case for the agreement to the Israeli Prime Minister, and I have no doubt that I shall hear, in great detail, his case against it.

UN Independent Commission of Inquiry (Gaza)

Tania Mathias Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I commend the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) for securing the debate. I want to speak briefly about the independent commission of inquiry and in particular about the points made in the concluding observations of its report. The fourth concluding observation mentions the use of live ammunition and

“the destruction of entire neighbourhoods…the policy itself violates the laws of war.”

I commend to everyone the concluding observations and recommendations. They are important for all the debates in this area.

The report recommends that Palestinians and Israelis should be

“refraining from and taking active steps to prevent statements that dehumanize the other side”.

Having seen the United Nations Relief and Works Agency director general, Pierre Krähenbühl, on his visit to MPs, I note the critical importance of the conflict. Daesh is in the area, and I want all the recommendations to be implemented. As the independent commission has said, the greatest challenge is to implement its fair recommendations.