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International Affairs

No, I do not, and I very much regret the fact that my hon. Friend is so absolutely unbalanced in her attitude to these matters. I do not believe either that her comments are helpful to the people of Israel, whom she seeks to defend and protect. Israel’s dilemma—and this is the view of many serious scholars and commentators, but it is not said often in the House—is that it wants the maximum territory, way beyond the 1967 boundaries, as is clear from all its actions, with the minimum of Palestinians. It has now become clear that the issue is to be resolved by confining the Palestinians to a series of Bantustans, exactly as the apartheid regime in South Africa attempted to do. The plan is for a second ugly, legally and morally wrong, apartheid settlement. It is clear that President Bush has given the green light and it follows, of course, that our Prime Minister—whatever he says about the evaporating road map—will follow wherever President Bush goes and whatever the error of the US Administration’s ways. I am afraid that that will ensure continuing violence, destabilisation of the middle east and recruitment of ever-growing numbers to the use of violence for decades to come. The irony of that is that it is likely to lead in the end, no matter how long it takes, to the demise of the Jewish state as, just as with apartheid, more and more people support the call for the establishment of a secular Palestinian state—because that is the logical answer if we cannot have two states—where Jews, Arabs, Christians and all others can live together as equal citizens. We are, I am afraid, heading for further violence and catastrophe, and I am sad to say that our Government are following President Bush’s errors and pouring petrol on the flames.