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Iraq and the wider Middle East

While it was perfectly fair for the right hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Jane Kennedy) to make a speech expressing her own point of view, I think it was somewhat demeaning of her to suggest that the speech from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) about what we should do now in Iraq was anything other than an honest statement of a policy assessment by a party which, incidentally, when it opposed the war unanimously, did so against a background of popular opinion in favour of the invasion. It does not have a record of simply taking the popular line. It takes the principled line, and my right hon. and learned Friend has a long track record of integrity on issues of foreign affairs which I think that the right hon. Lady will recognise and her constituents will respect. I want to discuss the situation in Israel and Palestine, and my belief that the engagement in Iraq has taken attention away from the need to solve a problem that has become seriously worse, but has not received the international attention that it deserves if there is to be progress towards peace. Following the events of last summer, a weakened Israel has contributed to a sharp deterioration in the opportunity and climate for peace. Within the state of Israel, public opinion polls show a strong desire for a peace settlement among the population—it almost seems that they would do anything to secure such a settlement—along with a very low expectation that any such settlement can be secured in the present climate. That is cause for concern. Next Wednesday the International Development Committee, which I chair, will publish a report. I will not pre-empt it now, but I hope that the House will pay attention to it, because I do not think we should regard the plight of the Palestinian people and their increasing dependence on aid with any degree of equanimity. Many of the measures that we are taking in response to the situation may even be making the achievement of a long-term solution harder rather than easier. As was mentioned by the Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree and one or two others, the increasing volume of international aid, and the welcome release by the Israeli Government of $100 million to the office of the Palestinian President, give the impression that we are supporting the Palestinian people. However, while aid is at a record level, it does not replace the revenue lost by the actions of the international community. I accept that the reasons for those actions were decided collectively, but they have left the Palestinian Authority deprived of 75 per cent. of its budget, and any public organisation that loses 75 per cent. of its budget will be incapable of delivering the services that people look to it to provide. A total of $60 million a month came from customs revenues collected by the state of Israel on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, and $30 million a month came from the international community in the form of direct budget support. All the Palestinian Authority can get its hands on now is the $30 million of internal revenues that can be collected by the Authority itself. The international community has responded with increased contributions from our own aid budget, from the European Union, the United Nations and other sources, but that is not solving the problem. The public services in the Palestinian state are on the verge of collapse. Many of the 160,000 public sector workers have been on strike because they have not been paid, and services are not being provided. The hospitals do not have drugs, and the clinics do not have the equipment that they need in order to care for people. One stark statistic—I think it relates to Hebron—is that before the funds were withdrawn, 600 women were in the local hospital having been delivered of babies over a period. Now there are only 100. The question that must arise is ““Where have the babies been born?”” They undoubtedly have been born, but they have not been cared for in the health system. Another issue lies at the door of the Israeli Government and the Israeli authorities: not just the fence, the barrier and the security of the state of Israel, which is entirely understandable—indeed, it is the responsibility of any Government to try to protect their citizens and to provide security—but the way in which they have disrupted life inside the occupied territories and the west bank and made it impossible for people to carry on day-to-day life. There are well over 500 roadblocks inside the west bank, which people have to negotiate. At the same time, Israeli settlements are expanding. Those settlements have exclusive dedicated bypass roads, which give them access and speedy exit to the main state of Israel. Those roads are a further barrier that the Palestinians in most cases are not allowed to use or to cross. The security barrier, or security fence may have some justification on security grounds, but the fundamental issue is that if a country wants to build a security fence it builds it, as we did in Northern Ireland, on its own land, not on the land that it occupies. More specifically, it should not build a 703 km barrier along a 315 km border. Clearly, the barrier is wiggling around and embracing all kinds of territory. That could by no stretch of the imagination be regarded as a security measure. It is regarded as an acquisition or indeed a land grab. In that context, it behoves the international community to take some initiatives now to engage with the Government of Israel, who need support to secure a settlement. Clearly, the deteriorating situation does not give long-term security to the people of Israel. Someone mentioned creating a failed state. One cannot create a failed state. What one can do is deny the Palestinian territory the capacity to become any kind of state. I suggest that the international community is doing exactly that: it is talking about a two-state solution, but presiding over a situation that makes the existence of two viable states, as the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) said, impossible to deliver. On a wider issue, in arguing the case for the invasion of Iraq, one or two Conservative Members have used grounds that are outside the framework of the grounds we were given when we were told the invasion was justified. However, on the back of the experience we have had in Iraq, the chances of persuading this country to engage, on humanitarian grounds, in international action in places such as Darfur—there have been similar situations in the Balkans and elsewhere—are likely to be a lot less than they may have been had that escapade not happened. I believe that it was a tragic mistake. Many of us have wrestled with trying to deliver the right result and helping to get a solution, but it is a question not just of whether we have a timetable to withdraw our own troops, but of giving the Iraqi authorities ways to address their ability to take control of their own country. Surely they must have some time frame and ability to develop capacity. If they cannot do it after four years, how many years do they have to have before we can withdraw and leave a viable state? The tragedy is that the diversion of attention to Iraq has further destabilised the middle east and made a settlement in Palestine-Israel less possible. However, that settlement is even more necessary. The situation is deteriorating day by day and is unsustainable. It behoves this Government to take initiatives—I commend the Prime Minister for wanting to do so— that will help to move forward a proper peace process, allow two states to develop and allow the people of Palestine to have an increase in prosperity, rather than increasing poverty, which is what they face now.