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Debate on the Address

My Lords, I have reflected on the debate on the Middle East which took place in your Lordships’ House on 23 October. It strikes me that no speaker then opposed the proposition that Hamas and Hezbollah must be part of any effective solution. This is a major change of opinions and I now feel much less lonely. Two weeks ago I criticised the western powers for imposing ““inept pre-conditions and quasi-boycotts””. Tonight I want to look in greater depth at western policy towards Israel and Palestine since the Oslo agreements. To go back even further, we should remember that the United Nations set up the Relief and Works Agency in 1949 to provide basic services for Palestinian refugees. UN members have been paying for this agency ever since. I would describe western policy since 1994 as one of drift, while each year signing enormous cheques. Since 1994 the immense sum of $9.4 billion has been spent. We, as taxpayers, have in effect been subsidizing the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and of Gaza up to 2005. It can be argued that the occupation of Gaza continues because of Israel’s control of the borders by air, sea and land. In the period 1994 to 2000 a quarter of all aid went, in theory, to build up Palestinian institutions and their effectiveness. Latterly, however, relief, energy supplies and salaries consume almost the whole budget. In Gaza, 1.1 million people out of 1.4 million depend on food aid. Western policy towards the Palestinians has been little less than a disaster. Massive aid has not stemmed unemployment and poverty. While there is now little justice for individuals, so-called security forces grew to some 86,000 by February 2007. Arms provided to President Abbas and Fatah failed to prevent Hamas’s takeover of Gaza last summer. Western policy has been a shifting one, sometimes backing the Palestinian president and sometimes the Legislative Council. At almost all times it has given scope for large-scale corruption. Certainly no effective support has been given to the reformers who exist within Fatah. The Palestinian Authority has been reduced to a failed state. The United States and the EU began to boycott Hamas well before the general election of January 2006. When the Mecca agreement came in February this year, the West totally failed to seize the opportunity for an effective power-sharing Government. It brought on itself the Gaza coup of last June. That has been followed by negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian president with support and supervision from the US. The negotiations are supposed to be formalised at an international conference at Annapolis. It would, however, be a brave man who could predict a useful outcome unless those who can actually deliver results are included. Western policy towards Israel has been consistently timid and weak. During Prime Minister Olmert’s first year, the number of settlers in the West Bank increased by 5.8 per cent. One hundred and two outposts that even Israel considers illegal are still tolerated. The wall and fences continue to be built on Palestinian land. Bethlehem is now isolated and the West Bank cut up into fragments. Twelve hundred kilometres of roads on the West Bank are wholly or partly reserved for settlers. By 2003 Palestinian assets and infrastructure to a value of $728 million, funded entirely by external donors, had been destroyed by Israeli military action. Such actions have drawn only the mildest protests. In 2005, laborious discussions produced the agreement on movement and access. That was followed by the Rafah crossing-point agreement, establishing the EU border assistance mission. So successful was the latter that 100,000 travellers passed through it in the first two months. Alas, Rafah is now shut and no movement or access provisions have been implemented. Around 5,000 students are unable to leave Gaza for further education. The Palestinian economy is largely destroyed. Israel may imagine it is secure—but for how long, with a new-style Somalia so close by? Before worse befalls, Israel should considers whether its current policies may not be self-defeating. If its true interest lies in having a stable and peaceful neighbour, should it not encourage power-sharing between secular and religious nationalists? Should it not strongly support everything that strengthens legitimate Palestinian institutions? Imprisoning more than half of Hamas’s parliamentarians can hardly be helpful. Detaining some 10,000 people, including some women and children, must alienate minds and hearts. Closures and check-points add to the prolonged agony of the West Bank. In the West—that is to say, the US and the EU—there is surely a need to re-examine the policies towards both Israel and Palestine. The wise warnings of James Wolfensohn, Alvaro de Soto, Jan Egeland, the World Bank and the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs have all been ignored. It is no surprise that experienced and highly committed public servants have resigned in despair. American attempts at regime change have not proved successful. Legitimate Palestinian authority has been undermined. Israel has been encouraged to defy international law and conventions. The West should learn from the decision in 2003 by the International Committee of the Red Cross to withdraw from a situation it could not influence. If revised policies are needed in the West, so too in Israel, which is by far the stronger party in negotiations with Palestine. I doubt that continued occupation of the West Bank can be in Israel’s true interest. Its own public opinion calls for a long-term agreement. If international guarantees are necessary to support such an agreement, it will be in our interest that they be given. There has to be new thinking on all sides. Mediterranean co-operation, with United States involvement, could be the context in which new thought will bear fruit. This country has its own double standard to review. When the safety of a distinguished British journalist was at stake, the Government were quick to talk to Hamas. On urgent regional matters affecting world peace they refuse to engage, even on de facto terms, despite the de facto recognition that Hamas affords to Israel. They refuse although they talk to the regimes of Iran, Zimbabwe, Burma and elsewhere. The time for changes has come.