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Israel and Palestinian Territories

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Bercow, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) on securing the debate. I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests regarding my visit to Israel and the west bank last December. The House has been divided on many issues today, but underlying the speeches made has been agreement from practically everybody that as part of an overall peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, the settlements, roadblocks and road closures need to go. I agree with that for three reasons. First, as a matter of principle, the settlements are unlawful under international law. The relevant United Nations resolutions and the various attempted peace agreements, most notably the road map, have always envisaged that, subject to any agreement between the two parties to vary the complete dismantling of settlements, they should be removed as part of an overall peace agreement. Secondly, there is a running political sore. The hon. Member for Battersea (Martin Linton) was slightly unfair and underplayed the genuine fears in Israel about security and continuing terrorism. However, he was accurate in his description of how ordinary Palestinians experience roadblocks, the barrier, settlements, closed roads and so on. When I have been to the west bank, I have talked to people whom we would regard as respectable, educated, professional Palestinians, who have described their resentment and humiliation at being bossed around by some 19-year-old conscript who does not want to be on duty at a roadblock, but who makes his or her day a little less tedious by making life miserable for the people coming through it. If that is the reaction of educated professional Palestinians, it must be far worse among resentful, unemployed young men, of whom there are a great many in the occupied territories. Even moderate Palestinians see the expansion of some settlements since Annapolis as evidence of bad faith on Israel's part. Thirdly, the existence of the settlements, barriers, roadblocks and so on constricts hopes of economic development. People cannot move goods freely if, every time a lorry gets to a roadblock, it has to be unloaded and its cargo put on to pallets and checked carefully. If people are prevented from travelling and commuting to work, as they are by the barrier and roadblocks, hopes of economic growth in the Palestinian territories are hindered. All the hopes of Tony Blair and those that came from the donors' conference in Paris will be set at nought if we cannot find a way urgently to tackle the problem. At the same time, we must address the reality of Israeli fears about security. It is not just a bunch of political leaders who are resisting the dismantling of settlements and roadblocks for their own reasons. Israel's electorate yearn for peace—every test of opinion shows that—but still have real fears. They observe that although Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza and dismantled settlements there, it was rewarded, in their eyes, with Qassam rockets on Sderot and further attempts at suicide bombing. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Carswell) and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) said, the ending of the settlement has always been seen as part of the final peace agreement, rather than as something to be offered up in advance. I would challenge the Government of Israel on this point: in every conversation that I have had with officials and politicians, they have been sincere in saying that they want to work with President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad to bring about a move towards a comprehensive peace agreement following the Annapolis conference. The trouble is that Mr. Abbas and Mr. Fayyad need to be able to demonstrate quickly to their population that there will be real material and political gains for the Palestinian people as a consequence of engagement and negotiation with Israel. I fear that some of what has happened since Annapolis, particularly the announcements on Har Homa, is sending a different message to the Palestinians and undermining those whom Israelis rightly want to be their partners in the search for a lasting and just peace. What, then, can a British Government do? I have two suggestions for the Minister. I shall not pretend that he, or whichever Minister or Foreign Secretary is in office, will be able to wave a magic wand and sort out the problem quickly, but our influence could be exercised in a couple of ways. First, one of the keys to progress is sorting out security along with economic development. Can the United Kingdom, together with its Quartet and EU partners, work on a plan to open up particular highways and help train Palestinian police officers and security officials, so that checks can be provided to a standard that will satisfy the Israelis and persuade them to relax the controls, without feeling that it will endanger their own population, thereby allowing economic development? Helping to build the capacity of the Palestinian Authority in that way is something positive that we could do. Secondly, one of Israel's great fears is that the Arab world in general is not committed to peace. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside mentioned the Khartoum conference, held many years ago, but since then we have had the Arab peace plan and the attendance of virtually every significant Arab country at Annapolis. Just the other day, a speech by Prince Turki al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia held out a vision of a middle east region co-operating harmoniously and building mutual prosperity—Arab and Israeli together—if a settlement on Palestine can be attained. Anything that the British Government can do to encourage our traditional friends in the Arab world to speak out more, along lines similar to Prince Turki's, would help to provide the reassurance that the Israelis need, so that we can start to take forward the hopes that were built at Annapolis and not let them crumble to dust, as has happened too often in the past.