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Israel and Palestinian Territories

I see that you are getting more agitated as the debate progresses, Mr. Bercow. You have had to bring your calculator into the debate so that hon. Members know what time limits are required. Leaving them to make their own calculations in the first place was the initial mistake, but I am sure that you will not make it again. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) on the way that he introduced the debate. Despite the taunting on numerous occasions, he has managed to de-escalate the debate. As we have seen this morning, passions are very strong on both sides of the argument. The hon. Member for Battersea (Martin Linton) said that it is not mutually exclusive to be a friend of Israel and a friend of Palestine. That is important for us all to remember, because if we are to seek a solution to this problem, which has been protracted over many decades, we will have to be the friend of both. The hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Newmark) said that the more heated the debate becomes, the less enlightened it becomes. That, too, is true. We need to de-escalate, as my hon. Friend did on numerous occasions when introducing the debate. He told us about his first visit to Palestine, which was only last September, despite a lifelong commitment to the cause. He set out his case extremely well and said that the visit was not a counsel of despair: it was bleak, but there was a degree of hope. There have been excellent contributions from the hon. Members for Harwich (Mr. Carswell), for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn), for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) and for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant). The contributions shortened as time went on. My hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland alluded to the Palestinians' difficulties with the 563 physical obstacles that are in place, which include checkpoints, roadblocks, earth mounds, trenches, fences and gates on the roads in the west bank. There are also external closures with 13 designated barrier crossing points, 11 of which are for people. I found the permits system extremely bizarre. Under it, permits are allowed only for over-35s who are married with at least one child. They must have no security record and they must have an employer within Israel. Each permit lasts for only three months. When people with permits do try to cross the external closure, they have to wait for a very long time. There is also the back-to-back system of passing goods from one side to the other. All those things make it difficult for business and the economy to thrive. In 2006, the crossing points were closed for 91 days, and many are not operational for long periods. That has had a dramatic effect on the number of Palestinians who are able to work in Israel. It has dropped from 140,000 in 1999, to 64,000 in 2006. We need to ensure that this is a balanced argument and that we also understand the difficulties that people in Israel face. There have been in Israel many rocket attacks and deaths, particularly of children, over a protracted period. Israeli politics is a fluid politics. One coalition partner recently left the coalition, making the whole situation extremely fragile. The Government now have only 67 of 127 seats in the Knesset, so they always have to watch their backs in the politics of their own country. We must be cognisant of both sides' difficulties in this affair and of the insecurity and fear within the populations on both sides. We have missed numerous opportunities with the various ceasefires and treaties that have been in place. The fact that there is now a unity Government between Hamas and Fatah does not seem to have delivered any results in terms of a return to peace. The road map was allowed to slip in a hopeless way, and the fact that it took President Bush seven years to consider this issue a priority for his term in office was a disgrace. There has also been a host of initiatives over the years: the Annapolis conference, the Oslo accords, the road map, various UN resolutions, the Quartet and the involvement of our former Prime Minister. However, that never seems to result in much progress, or it is a case of one step forward, two steps back. The Palestinian-Israeli issue is a festering sore in the whole middle east, and we need to prioritise it to ensure that all sides give it the weight that it deserves. The rhetoric is easy, and we all know the elements that need to be in place: the two-state solution, the ceasefire on both sides, the building up of security and a growing economy and the public sector. Those things are easy to say, and there is no point in trading the number of casualties on either side, which does not get us much further toward finding a solution. We need the Arab League to be more involved, and we need to ensure that the security barrier is not constructed any further and that the number of Israeli settlements is reduced. In what order those things should happen is a matter for debate—the question is how we implement the policy proposals that the rhetoric is about. No matter in what order we put them, somebody will always say, ““They have to do this first before we do this.”” There must be common agreement about how to proceed. It is easy to say those things from this Chamber, but much more difficult to implement them in practice.