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Lebanon and the Middle East

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) on securing the debate. He and I, with my hon. Friends the Members for Dewsbury (Mr. Malik) and for Bristol, East (Kerry McCarthy) and the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed) were in the delegation in Lebanon a couple of weeks ago. As chairman of the all-party group on Lebanon, my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton was the de facto leader of the group, and he led us with good spirits through 15-hour days and the Beirut traffic, keeping our spirits up as far as was possible in the circumstances. I am also pleased to welcome my hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East. Three times in the past 12 months I have come back from areas of conflict, and three times I have debated with him in this Chamber. It is a good relationship so far. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton, I was profoundly moved and distressed by the images that we saw in Beirut and the south of Lebanon. There is no doubt that the killing of the eight Israeli soldiers and the kidnapping of two on the Lebanese border was wholly unnecessary and wrong, and the kidnapping should be remedied as soon as possible. The same applies to what is happening in Gaza as well. However, the way in which the Israelis responded to that situation, with the desolation and damage that we saw, was wholly disproportionate. We went to the village of Ait al-Chab, where virtually every house had been destroyed. According to Christian Aid, 54,000 homes were damaged or destroyed overall by Israeli attacks over 33 days, with 140 schools damaged. Why target schools? We visited a school for children with learning disabilities that was on a hill above the village. It had been bombed and destroyed, so 93 children from 23 different villages were being educated elsewhere, in just one room. We saw bridges that had been clinically taken out. Every single bridge on the motorway between Beirut and the south of the country had been taken out with precision bombing. We also saw places in Beirut where clinical attacks had removed blocks of flats with such precision as to leave scars like missing teeth in the fabric of the city. As well that, 1.2 million cluster bombs were used, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton said. We saw several of them first hand in olive groves, which has made it impossible for the harvest to be taken in this year and for people to get their businesses and livelihoods back together. Every day since the war ended, two people—mostly children—have died because of unexploded bombs. Those bombs have a 40 per cent. failure rate, which makes it inevitable that they will be dangerous and life threatening for a long time to come. Indeed, we were told that some of those munitions were already 30 years old. They were probably ex-Vietnam stock, and were rusted up and looked pretty lethal. The impact on us of what we saw will probably last a lifetime. Perhaps the most moving moment for me was when my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury and I visited the site at Qana where a block of flats had, I think, been taken out on the last day of the war. Some 29 people were killed, 17 of whom were children. Completely fortuitously and unplanned, we met an elderly man who had lost his brother, his son and his daughter-in-law, and three grandsons in the destruction of those flats. As far as we knew, there was no military reason for taking out that building. It was miles from anywhere and was not even particularly close to the border. I do not think that a satisfactory explanation for such wanton and wholly disproportionate destruction can ever be given. The good news is that there has been a cessation of hostilities since the middle of August—people were anxious that we regarded it as a cessation of hostilities, not as a ceasefire. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton said, there are still factors that bring into question whether a real ceasefire and withdrawal of forces is in operation. Those factors include the Shebaa farms and the over-flying—that is, the threatening use—of military aircraft, not to drop bombs, but simply to remind people of their presence and the nearby Israeli border. All those issues are yet to be resolved. I agree with the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) on many things to do with the middle east. However, we had to wait 33 days for a ceasefire and, although I was one of those who called for early words from all sorts of sources to try to resolve the conflict, if words had been sufficient, I am sure that they would have been used. But words were never going to be sufficient, and it was always going to be more important to have a sustainable cessation of hostilities. That sustainability was always going to take longer to achieve than simply waving a magic wand. Therefore, although it is wholly regrettable that the war continued for 33 days, and although the Israelis could have stopped it at any time—having got compensation, as they saw it, for the attacks on their land—the fact that British people were at the United Nations, negotiating, talking and relating to other players in the field, and the fact that what has happened subsequently has proved to be 99.99 per cent. sustainable meant that it was worth going that extra mile and waiting those extra few days. Some of the politicians whom we met in Lebanon accepted that. They accepted that a worse solution would have been a ceasefire that broke down every few days. There are legitimate political arguments taking place in Lebanon. Although I am no expert on it, Lebanon has an interesting constitution, because it maintains that there should be statutory representation at the highest level for the Christian, Sunni and Shi’ite communities. That is under attack now, partly because of the political ascendancy of Hezbollah, partly because of a strong feeling that the one-to-one-to-one relationship in the constitution is 50 years out of date, and partly because of controversies around issues such as the United Nations investigation into the Hariri assassination. Although all parties superficially supported the UN investigation, it is clear that the pro-Syrian ones perhaps did not have their hearts in it. Indeed, the day before we arrived, five members of the Lebanese Cabinet walked out, bringing about a political crisis that was being dealt with as we were there. There have been other assassinations besides that of Hariri. We met the father of Mr. Tueni, who was killed a year ago, and there has been the killing of Gemayel since then. There has also been a rearrangement of some of the political alliances in Lebanon, with General Aoun’s party occupying a different position on the political spectrum than in the past. There are 128 members of the Lebanese Parliament, of whom 14 are Hezbollah’s elected representatives. The view that Hezbollah politicians put forward within the democratic context must be acknowledged as a genuinely legitimate part of the Lebanese political spectrum. We met Hezbollah politicians who were committed to democracy and the parliamentary route, but who were nevertheless using the present lack of clarity in Lebanese politics precipitated by the war to push home what they saw as their political ascendancy. That has been caused by the feeling, particularly in the south of the country, that Hezbollah’s military wing successfully resisted the Israeli incursion—that is not my interpretation, but my feeling of what people were thinking in that part of the country. When an organisation such as Hezbollah is not only seen to be actively defending people’s interests and delivering aid to them—by providing cash directly to homeless families, for example—but seen to be a legitimate political force, that organisation will be in the ascendancy. Putting the war aside for a moment, I am sure that the reason for Hezbollah’s ascendancy is exactly the reason Hamas was so successful in Palestine earlier in the year, as the hon. Member for Reigate said. The reason is to do with the effects on the economy, and therefore the self-confidence of the countries that are directly affected by the way in which Israel has undermined the operation of their economies. The Lebanese economy in the south of the country is non-existent in exactly the same way as the economy of the west bank is made non-functional by the network of roads, settlements, roadblocks and occupation there. Lebanon is at a historic crossroads, as it has always been in 1,000 years of history. Its democratic tradition is under threat—it is certainly wobbly—and we need to support its democratic institutions such as its Parliament. We need to support its President, its Prime Minister and all those committed to the democratic way. We must ensure that they are not undermined by the threat of war and its effect on the economy, society and civilisation of Lebanon. At present in Lebanon, there are 1.2 million unexploded cluster bombs, which threaten people’s lives daily, and half a million land mines, some of which have been there for more than 20 years. Such a country cannot function as we would hope and expect.