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Adjournment (Summer Recess)

I am grateful to have been called to speak in this very busy debate. I, too, wish to refer to the serious crisis taking place in Lebanon. Like many other Members, I am deeply concerned about what is happening there. I see it as a tragedy of errors—a war that did not have to take place and should not have begun. The Government’s policy on the issue is quite extraordinary and needs to be examined. I should like to draw on my experiences in Northern Ireland, where, a long time ago, I was responsible for building part of the peace line in Belfast. I had the experience of driving the pikes into the ground at that time. The policy of the Israeli Government is absolutely catastrophic. It was the greatest error imaginable to move back into Lebanon, and the UK Government policy on this is totally misguided. What Israel’s policy has achieved for Israel is desperate: its northern cities are being attacked at a time of holiday, families are being killed, and the country is less secure than ever. It is more threatened than it has been for many years, and it is now faced with rockets with a greater range than ever before. When I heard about the capture of the Israeli soldiers I thought, ““What a great opportunity for Israel to show statesmanship. What an opportunity for them to step back and give a measured response.”” That was obviously what was needed. Hezbollah was clearly not being controlled by the Lebanese Government. From my experience in Northern Ireland, I question whether the Hezbollah people who took those soldiers were really controlled by Hezbollah. This looked like the work of a splinter group, rather than the main Hezbollah. The Israelis’ absolute refusal to have any discussions on the issue was what started this war. We are told that Hezbollah started the war, but it did not. What started it was the fact that there was no negotiation. Historically, in 1979, 1985, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2004, Israel always negotiated over the release of prisoners. The reason why Hezbollah did this was not because it was being pushed by Iran but because it has thousands of prisoners in Israeli jails—men, women and children. That is what caused this resistance movement to gain energy and to take this desperate course of action. Now, Israel is faced with this attack. I do not condone or support it; I think that it is a terrible mistake. The response of the international community has been even worse. Who can remember Henry Kissinger flying between cities as fast as he could to try to resolve past crises? What do we have here? We have a G8 that is incapable of coming up with a formula. We have an American Government who have given the Israelis a free hand to smash up Lebanon under the pretext that that is necessary to defeat Hezbollah. We have a British Government who—I say this really of the Foreign Secretary—appear to parrot American policy. When a commentator on the Radio 4 ““Today”” programme asked the Foreign Secretary about Iraq in connection with Lebanon, she appeared to think that there was no connection. She is completely out of touch. We now have the ludicrous situation in which the demand made by the Israelis for the implementation of UN resolution 1559 calling for the Lebanese Government to control and disarm Hezbollah—which has become less likely than ever—is now a policy. Against that background, other UN resolutions—242 and 338, calling for the withdrawal of Israelis from ““territories occupied””—are completely ignored, as if they had never existed. What folly it is to have that policy now. Britain has no troops in Israel but thousands across Arabia, had a terrorist attack in London last year, and has 1.6 million Muslims, and yet we have managed to put most of our friends in Arabia off-side by not coming out strongly against the destruction of civilian infrastructure, affecting Arabs, Christians and all those in the emerging democracy of Lebanon. What folly it is, too, to take no notice of the fact that Hamas had won elections in Palestine. We support democracies when it is convenient—that is the American way—but what happens when the wrong people are in charge? Has anyone remembered that Hezbollah runs schools, as the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) said, and has been elected to the Beirut Parliament? Why are we in such a mess? I have referred to the Foreign Secretary, but let me talk for a while about the Prime Minister’s special envoy to the middle east, the noble Lord Levy. He has not visited a single Arab country—I have looked it up—but he has made copious visits to Israel, of which he is clearly a strong supporter, with a business and relations there. He is supposed to be impartial. Why did the Prime Minister not choose someone who is an old Arab hand and really knows his way around the middle east? If we go to the Spinwatch website, we find that apparently, when the noble Lord took on his other role to raise large sums of money for the Labour party, it was on the"““tacit understanding that Labour would never again, while Blair was leader, be anti-Israel””." I have done a rough check on Library figures, and about a quarter to a third of all the money raised in loans for the Labour party since the noble Lord has been involved has come from pro-Israeli supporters. When we have thousands of our troops in Arab countries, is it possible that there is a link between the Labour party being short of money and British foreign policy in support of the Israeli position? Is it possible that the Government are conveniently ignoring our interests in the wider Arab world because of Labour’s domestic difficulties? I hope that someone will investigate this important matter. I fear for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Government have done them a great disservice by not coming out strongly against the attacks on Arab civilian installations. It makes their task much more difficult. It is absolutely essential, however, that we take a more sympathetic view, and that we listen more to our British Muslims and try to give them comfort by not simply going along with an American policy that is clearly at variance with that which most people in the world believe to be sensible.