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Middle East

I was aware of the World Bank report. I believe that the blockade needs to be lifted, but that the rocket attacks on Israeli cities need to cease. The two things have to go together. I will be interested to hear from the Government what information they have had from the Egyptian authorities about the talks that the Egyptians have been having with the Hamas rulers of Gaza to see whether progress can be made. Secondly, we also clearly need to see progress on the west bank itself. If moderate leaders, such as President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad, are to succeed, they will have to be able to demonstrate to their citizens that negotiations are bringing political and economic fruits. I will say happily from the Opposition Benches that we very much support the work that Tony Blair is putting in as the Quartet’s representative in trying to secure economic progress for the Palestinians. We hope that tomorrow’s meeting achieves some significant steps forward in pursuit of that objective. When we talk to anybody in Israeli politics or any citizen of Israel, it becomes clear that the questions of economic progress on the west bank and the security of Israel are intimately connected. There is no doubt that there has been an enormous impact on Israeli domestic opinion from their experience of having left Gaza, dismantling the settlements there and then finding that, instead of being able to leave in peace, they were the recipient of rocket attacks on civilians in their southern cities. I have seen reports that one possible way of making progress on the west bank that would allow the checkpoints and road blocks to be removed would be to have some kind of international presence on the ground to supervise and enforce a more limited number of rigorous checks on people and goods to a standard sufficient to satisfy the Israeli authorities about the security of their people. Is that, indeed, something that will be considered at tomorrow’s meeting of the ad hoc group? Does the Minister believe that there is a readiness among European countries and in Israel itself for such an international presence to be deployed? Who would provide the personnel for such a presence and what type of people are we talking about? Are we talking about soldiers being deployed and police officers being sent to carry out duties or are we talking about civilian officials? It would be interesting to know more about what is planned. Thirdly, we need to make further progress in making it clear to the people of Israel, who are very concerned about their security, that a settlement with the Palestinians will indeed lead to a regional settlement in which Israel’s right to exist as a neighbour is fully recognised by the wider Arab world.