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Lebanon and the Middle East

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Weir. I want to draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Interests and to thank the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding and Medical Aid for Palestinians for facilitating a recent visit to Lebanon. I also thank the Speaker’s Office and the House authorities for making special arrangements for this debate today. It comes at a critical time, but one or two of my colleagues arrived thinking that we were having a debate on Punjabis so perhaps the publicity for my debate was not ideal, which may be why there are fewer of us here than such an important debate merits at such an important time. This is an opportunity to debate issues arising from the 33 or 34-day invasion of Lebanon when more than 1,000 people died, 4,500 were injured, around 1 million were displaced, an estimated £4 billion of damage was done and, as we saw on our visit, many villages in the south particularly were almost erased from the ground. Indeed, I understand that only 70 per cent. of the people have been able to return to their villages in the south, which illustrates the damage that was done during that time. There was also political damage. Lebanon is now more polarised and trust between politicians has evaporated. We hear continually about the possibility of street protests and a ratcheting up of issues that most of us believe are not to the benefit of Lebanon. Recent events have compounded those difficulties. The assassination of Minister Gemayel and the suicide bomb incident at the Lebanese-Syrian border yesterday will do nothing to calm nerves. My starting point is that strong support for the elected Government of Prime Minister Siniora must be our goal. However, in giving that support, we must recognise the instability in Lebanon, which relates partly to the history of the country and partly to its weak institutions. People often ask me how things happen in that country. The complexities of the confessional system, particularly the Taif agreement, are difficult to understand, especially when there is no estimate of the overall population of the different communities, but a suspicion that the Shi’a community may be increasing rapidly at the expense of the other four or five communities. In that regard and after the events in the summer, Hezbollah has been agitating for an end to the Government’s pro-western stance, citing its under-representation. The national dialogue that was a feature in that country has ended recently and Ministers who support Hezbollah’s position have recently withdrawn from the Government. There are deep divisions between the 14 March pro-Government supporters and Hezbollah and its supporters. However, we found that attitudes were tempered by the country’s historic experience, particularly the spectre of civil war. On our visit we met the Prime Minister, the President and many political figures, and all expressed some confidence that dialogue would continue with no decline into the sort of activities that took place in the past. There is also a history of foreign power intervention in Lebanon, most recently by Israel, but for many years Syria was directly involved in Lebanon. That feeds Lebanese suspicions. I was interested that a recent poll suggested that 84 per cent. of Lebanese people thought that Israel’s intervention was premeditated by Israel and the United States. There is a general lack of trust in the international community which is particularly important in relation to the United Nations forces that are based there. The international community has failed in the past because not only were previous forces of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon not seen to deliver what had been promised, but the reconstruction aid promised in 2000 was never delivered. The Lebanese see their country as a surrogate arena for the wider conflicts in the region and that perception was reinforced by the conflict in July. Particularly poignant was the long delay before cessation of the violence and the fact that not everyone in the international community condemned the activities of the Israeli authorities and the disproportionate nature of the invasion. However, something changed the whole dynamic in the region: during the conflict Hezbollah challenged the invincibility of the Israeli forces. I am not here to say whether that succeeded in reality, but the perception in Lebanon and the wider middle east is that there was some success and I believe that that changed the dynamic, not particularly in Lebanon, interestingly, where polarisation of the two sides did not lead to a significant increase in support for Hezbollah, but undoubtedly in the middle east generally. Taking all that together, I want to consider today what has happened, what the international community has done during the past three months and what it needs to do to ensure and safeguard peace not only in Lebanon but in the wider middle east. First, on security there has been some progress in the implementation of UN resolutions 1559 and 1701. I am pleased that there were very few breaches in the cessation of hostilities, but we were constantly asked why there was no ceasefire. It took some time, but Israeli troops have been withdrawn entirely and that must be very welcome. We saw the deployment of Lebanese troops in the border areas and when we travelled there we saw regular contingents, although there is still some concern about the loyalty and quality of some of those troops. Most importantly in the circumstances, UNIFIL is beginning to deploy several European countries and others have been involved in that role. However, when we asked about terms of engagement there still seemed to be confusion or lack of clarity that could prove to be critical in any future difficulties. The problem of cluster bombs is very much to the fore in Lebanon. It is estimated that there are 1 million unexploded cluster bombs in the south of the country—90 per cent. of them were dropped within the last three days of the conflict—and we were told that because of that two people are killed every day while they are trying to gather in the harvest. My first question to the Minister is: what representations have been made to Israel to help that situation? We must clear those cluster weapons at the earliest opportunity and Israel has an important role to play in that. There remain significant challenges for the international community to overcome in Lebanon. Although the air and sea blockade has been lifted, Lebanese sovereignty has not been respected, and Israeli air incursions continue regularly. They include mock raids, which are provocative and meant to terrorise the local population. When we were in the country, political leaders from all sides told us that the international community must do more. Have the Government protested publicly about the incursions? Will the Minister take up that issue with the Israeli authorities? There can be no military or security reason for the incursions, and taking up the issue would help enormously to reduce tension between the two countries. There is little movement on border disputes. I am talking specifically about Shebaa farms. We understand that the United Nations has started mapping, but Prime Minister Olmert on behalf of the Israelis says that no way will they give back the Shebaa farms either to the United Nations or to anyone else. In reality, the farms will remain a flashpoint and a source of friction between the two countries. In many ways, Hezbollah’s protection of the border, which it believes includes Shebaa farms, is its raison d’être. Again, have representations been made? It would seem eminently sensible, and the Lebanese told us that the land should be handed over to the United Nations. Before anything is done with it, the decision might perhaps be subject to final Israeli approval. Undoubtedly, that issue must be resolved at the earliest opportunity.