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International Affairs

I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me, but I want to press on. In a meeting in the House only last month, the Israeli Prime Minister told hon. Members that he would pursue diplomatic negotiations and aimed to begin negotiation with President Abbas before embarking on his plans for withdrawal from the west bank. From a wider perspective, in April this year President Bush welcomed Prime Minister Siniora to the White House and proclaimed that Lebanon"““can serve as a great example of what is possible in the broader Middle East””." Those small steps towards peace and wider regional stability and prosperity were not in the interests of terrorist organisations, which thrive on chaos and fear. Their power derives from derailing negotiations and causing turbulence and violence. I have no doubt that Hezbollah kidnapped the Israeli soldier in a deliberate attempt to stop any progress in the peace process, and to escalate violence and so increase and consolidate its power. In so doing, it has taken the world’s attention away from Iran’s attempts to secure nuclear weapons—a prospect that would have immensely harmful repercussions for the stability of the wider regional and global theatres. We cannot conclude that Iran directly ordered the attacks and kidnappings against Israeli targets—that would be a crude assessment—but there is a strong and co-ordinated web of influence between Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, and that relationship has been nurtured over the past few decades. Hezbollah was created by the Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war, and since then it has received training and weaponry and technical expertise from Tehran. Iran is Hezbollah’s main sponsor, donating an average of $100 million to $200 million a year. As was said earlier, Hezbollah has deliberately entwined itself into civilian life in Lebanon. As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) pointed out, missiles and military equipment are stored in densely populated areas. That is the context of the current crisis. Israel has a wish—a legitimate one, in my opinion—to try to destroy Hezbollah’s military capability to minimise the risks to its citizens and to mitigate, as much as possible, the existential threat to itself. Israel also has a right, which I do not think anybody in the House or elsewhere could dispute, to defend its borders. However, that task is made immeasurably more difficult by the deliberate intention of Hezbollah to intertwine its military capability into civilian life in Lebanon. This tactic is cowardly, but I urge restraint on Israel. The loss of life, the injury and the impact upon the basic humanitarian situation in Lebanon have been truly horrendous. Israel must show restraint and try to ensure that its legitimate aim of destroying the military wing of Hezbollah does not coincide with or cause the destruction of the infrastructure of normal Lebanese life. Such a move would help breed even more of a culture of hatred and disaffection in the region, and would result in the evaporation of support from actors such as the G8 and Saudi Arabia. Diplomatic pressure for a ceasefire and thereafter a negotiated two-state structure are the only solutions, both in the short term and taking a longer perspective. I fully support the Government in their stance on the matter and their ability to try and get all parties to the negotiating table, but I accept that influence on Hezbollah is limited. The world must be firm that any of those short green shoots of peace which we have seen in recent months in the region are not trampled upon and destroyed for ever by extremist and aggressive states and terrorist organisations.