Israel and Palestinian Talks

Will Quince Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making some incredibly powerful points. Does she agree that there will be no peace deal while children are being indoctrinated to “hate the Jews” and the destruction of the state of Israel is encouraged? She rightly points out that schools—and sports competitions—have been named after terrorists, which is completely wrong.

[Theresa Villiers]

My hon. Friend makes an entirely valid point. In June 2016, a 13-year-old Israeli, Hallel Yaffa Ariel, was murdered as she slept. The 17-year-old terrorist who killed her was subsequently praised on Fatah’s official Facebook page. In a TV interview in September 2015, President Abbas declared:

“We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem”.

His Fatah party have praised Dalal Mughrabi as a “bride of Palestine”. She was responsible for killing 37 Israelis, including 12 children, in one of the most despicable attacks in Israel’s history. It is also very worrying, as Members have pointed out, that the recent al-Quds day march in London saw Hezbollah flags flown in full view of the police. One of my constituents described it as “grotesque and unacceptable” that a pro-terrorist demonstration went ahead in London just a short time after we had suffered at the hands of terrorists. Like others, I urge the Government to do away with the artificial distinction between the political and paramilitary parts of Hezbollah and proscribe the whole organisation. The flags carried at the march might have had a small disclaimer on them, but I gather that many included large pictures of Kalashnikovs.

A Palestinian state cannot be achieved through unilateral measures, only through face-to-face negotiations. I therefore welcome the Government’s refusal to sign the one-sided communique in Paris in February. Every Government in Israel’s history have expressed a wish to live in peace with their neighbours. Successive Israeli Governments have declared their support for establishing a Palestinian state through direct negotiations and agreement on mutual recognition, borders and security. Israel’s Prime Minister has repeatedly offered to restart negotiations.

There have been no official peace talks since 2014, but I believe there are grounds for hope. Israel’s relationship with a number of other countries has improved somewhat in the face of shared concern over matters such as the rise of Daesh and the hegemonic ambitions of Iran, which is now involved so heavily in many conflicts in the middle east. That shared concern appears to have opened up new channels of communication and co-operation, and led to a concerted regional push to revive the peace process. This issue divides the House, but I hope we can all agree on the importance of bringing the two sides together so that they can restart negotiations and work together to secure a brighter, better future for both Israelis and Palestinians.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Peterborough (Fiona Onasanya) on an excellent maiden speech. It is always a pleasure to follow a maiden speech and the hon. Lady delivered hers particularly well. I did not agree with every point in it, but it was delivered well and I have no doubt that the hon. Lady will join that distinguished group of Peterborough’s alpha women.

Hon. and right hon. Members have drawn attention to the key obstacles to peace and to the final status issues for the negotiations between Israel and Palestine. The starting point of all negotiations must surely be to determine who will be at the negotiating table itself. On the Israeli side, there is a turbulent but moveable coalition, which is typical of Israel’s lively democracy. On the Palestinian side, again, there are a number of parties, but they are deeply divided both geographically and ideologically. Let us not forget that the Gaza strip has been controlled for over a decade by the Hamas terror group, which is committed to the destruction of Israel.

[Will Quince]

Does my hon. Friend agree that Hamas cannot be a partner to the peace process unless it changes its ideology, renounces violence and accepts the state of Israel?

[Chris Davies]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and agree with every point he made. I am sure we will hear more from the Minister on that in his summing up.

Israel has released Palestinian prisoners who are guilty of committing deadly terror attacks as part of the Palestinian demands for the resumption of peace talks, but I join Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and the international community in calling for a return to negotiations without preconditions. It is difficult to see who will be sitting around the negotiating table when the leadership of Gaza and the west bank is so bitterly divided. Geographical separation is something for the negotiating table. Indeed, it is almost a decade since a former Israeli Prime Minister proposed a peace offer involving a route of safe passage between the west bank and Gaza. Palestinian President Abbas only recently admitted that he turned down the 2008 offer, which would have provided for an independent Palestinian state containing all of the Gaza strip and 94% of the west bank, with the final 6% provided through the long-agreed principle of land swaps.

However, the ideological division between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority concerns me more than the issue of land. Any peace agreement at this time would only be formed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the west bank, leaving Gaza isolated from a Palestinian state. Yet Israel stands in the middle of the two parties, in more ways than one. Recently, the Palestinian Authority announced that it would no longer pay the full electricity bill for Gaza, where electricity is provided by Israel. The reasoning behind the decision is widely seen as a means of exerting pressure on Hamas to relinquish its hold on Gaza. Accordingly, Israel has begun reducing electricity and is now vilified by the international community—this is illustrative of the entire Gaza crisis.

I strongly believe it is in the interests of all parties involved that international actions prioritise the union of a moderate Palestinian leadership that seeks peace in order to solve the conflict and bring much needed relief to the people of Gaza, as well as, of course, to Israel and the west bank. We must make it absolutely clear to the Palestinians that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) stated, naming schools and squares after terrorists does not show that they are committed to peace.

I hope that hon. and right hon. Members who choose to dwell on different obstacles to the peace process make it clear that although Israel is able to defend itself, we must not underestimate the impact of the divided Palestinian leadership and the repeated mantra that Israel is a temporary entity. I wish the Minister a great deal of much needed luck in his efforts to encourage Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to finally sit down together and make the difficult compromises needed to come to this lasting agreement.