Middle East

Debate between Tommy Sheppard and Rehman Chishti

Monday 30th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Tommy Sheppard]

It is distinct, but it is not possible to consider a lasting peace in the middle east without addressing the situation there, which I think is being brushed under the carpet at the moment.

In the occupied territories, the Israeli Government are sponsoring and supporting both the development of new settlements and the demolition of Palestinian homes and properties, which is creating a situation that is close to the annexation of those occupied territories by the state of Israel. That may be Israel’s intention, but if it pursues the same path, the viability of a separate Palestinian state will not be there, and hence the two-state solution will not be there. If the Israeli Government intend to continue their present policies, the Israeli Government should be challenged to say what they consider to be the longer-term conditions for a settlement of the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis in that part of the world. Meanwhile, millions of Palestinian refugees are still being held in the refugee camps in neighbouring countries, in a sort of holding pattern, and are being denied any hope or any prospect of a place that they can call home.

I must say in all seriousness that one of the things that this country could do—acting in concert with other western countries—is try to take a fresh initiative on the question of Israel-Palestine, and be seen to try to advocate the human rights of Palestinians and the requirement for a lasting and balanced peace in the area. I think that that would, single-handedly, do a great deal to undermine and counter much of the mythology that is being put about on the issue of Daesh, and the suggestion that this is a conflict between the west and Islam. We should be seen to take new action on Palestine, but at present no one is talking, and no talks are planned for the future. I know from correspondence with the Minister that he is sympathetic to much of what I have just said, but this seems to be the policy that dare not speak its name. The United Kingdom cannot continue to be silent on what is happening in that part of the world.

Let me now say something about Syria, which is the main event that we are discussing. I must make it clear that the Scottish National party understands the threat that Daesh poses to our way of life, and that we sympathise absolutely with the requirement for international action to undermine and eradicate that organisation. We are, however, anxious not to do something in the short term that would make things worse in the medium and the long term. That is why we remain unconvinced about the need for air strikes, which, it is proposed, should take place not with a ground strategy to follow, but in isolation.

Aerial bombardment in isolation means rearranging the piles of rubble, and it invariably results in some innocent casualties as collateral damage. It creates more refugees, and, above all, it plays into the narrative of Daesh that the crusaders are coming to deny the Muslim people their way of life. Unless there are forces on the ground, all that air strikes do is destroy territory rather than controlling it. Unless the air strikes are linked with a proper ground campaign, we think it irrelevant to make the Royal Air Force the 13th air force in the skies over Syria. For 15 months the Americans have been bombing these positions almost daily, yet the situation on the ground in Syria has not changed by one inch, and, if anything, Daesh is stronger than it was 15 months ago.

[Rehman Chishti]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tommy Sheppard]

Again, I am not sure whether I have time, but I will take the intervention.

[Rehman Chishti]

The hon. Gentleman will know, in relation to numbers on the ground, that at the Vienna conference Jordan was tasked with identifying moderate groups that could work with the international community. I have not seen a list of moderate groups from Jordan. Has the hon. Gentleman seen such a list, and are those groups part of the 70,000 that we are told will come from the Free Syrian Army?

[Tommy Sheppard]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s scepticism in this regard. Last Thursday I asked the Prime Minister whether he envisaged circumstances in which the Free Syrian Army and the Kurds would launch a successful ground offensive against Daesh, ignoring the presence of the Syrian army or pretending that it was not actually there. I did not receive a satisfactory answer.

It seems to me that a four-way civil war is taking place in Syria, and that some of those four sides are themselves quite complicated coalitions. If we are to develop a Daesh-first strategy, we shall need to persuade the other three sides to agree to co-ordinated action against Daesh. That is where the focus of diplomatic and political effort should be directed. I realise how difficult it will be. I realise that many of the groups that are associated with the Free Syrian Army, for example, would see Assad as more of an enemy than Daesh, and it will take a great deal of negotiation to bring all that together. It does not mean that all those groups must share a command structure, and it does not mean that they must share zones of operation—those can be separate—but any action must be co-ordinated. We cannot allow a situation in which some of them are simply trying to do what would be our bidding in a completely irrelevant and ineffective manner. That strikes me as a recipe for disaster.

The one hope in all this is the Vienna process, and the fact that a dialogue is under way. We believe that the time now should be spent in boosting that process, and in trying to secure the political and diplomatic agreements that we need for co-ordinated action that will be successful not just in bombing places into the stone age, but in taking control of land, starting with a military administration and then passing it over to civilian administrations month by month, year by year. Unless that framework is in place—and, unlike the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, for whom I have a great deal of respect, I remain to be convinced that it is—when the opportunity comes on Wednesday, the Scottish National party will not vote to go to war with Syria.