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Middle East

If my hon. Friend had waited a bit longer, he would have heard me making that condemnation, which I will make now. Clearly everyone in the House would—indeed, does—condemn that activity. However, that should not hold us back from saying that pressure needs to be put not only on Hamas, but on the Israeli Government, to enter into the peace process more substantively than they have too often done in the past. The settlement activity is an indication of the lack of good faith on the part of the Israeli Government. In spite of the Annapolis peace conference, there has been a continuation of settlement activity on the west bank in the past few months. That activity is in breach of international law and UN resolutions, and goes against the spirit of the Annapolis summit. The Israeli organisation Peace Now has produced some statistics about settlement activity on the west bank in the past few months. There has been construction in 101 settlements, with construction started on 275 new buildings, while almost 1,000 units have been established in caravan neighbourhoods. At the beginning of March, the Israeli Ministry of the Interior approved the conversion of one local council into a new city. The number of tenders and construction plans in East Jerusalem has leapt. Tenders for the construction of at least 750 housing units in East Jerusalem were issued between December last year and March 2008, yet throughout 2007 and up to Annapolis, only two tenders for 46 housing units were issued. All in all, the Israeli Government are, according to Peace Now, promoting the building of more than 3,500 housing units in the neighbourhoods of Jerusalem located east of the green line. When that is happening, there is every reason, bluntly, to doubt the good faith of the Israeli Government in working towards a settlement that we all want to see. That is not only why it is so important to put those facts on record, but why the international community needs to put more pressure on the Israeli Government to move towards a settlement that is at least acceptable to all parties in the area. I can understand why, with his lengthy experience in such matters, the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) should feel that the international community should draw back and allow the parties to reach their own resolution of the disputes. However, the experience on both sides, particularly in respect of the approach of the Israeli Government over the past few months, shows that without that pressure we will not move forward to a genuinely acceptable peace settlement. I hope that the message will go out from the House today that of course we want to see a stop to the rocket attacks by Hamas from Gaza or from anywhere, but equally that we need to see a change in the policies, actions and behaviour of the Israeli Government and in those actions that they authorise and support. In seeking to apply pressure through the international organisations of which we are a part—I recognise what the Government have done in that respect—we will be reflecting the views of many of our constituents. I am sure that I am not alone in having a number of constituents who are active on the issue locally. Tomorrow, for example, one of the Amnesty International groups in my constituency is opening an exhibition of photographs showing the plight of the Palestinian people. My constituency also contains the Hadeel fair trade shop, which imports products from Palestinian craft workers and sells them throughout the UK. It also imports olive oil that is produced by Palestinian farmers—sometimes with great difficulty, because of the transport restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities. I am told by Hadeel that in the past few years, almost 750,000 olive trees have been uprooted in the west bank, largely because of the activity of Israeli military units or because of the expansion of settlements there. That is worth mentioning, because although we talk about and want to see economic progress for the Palestinian people, even existing economic activity is being undermined all the time by activities either promoted directly or authorised by the Israeli Government. That is another example of how the Palestinian people continue to be put under pressure, and why the world needs to take action to relieve the immediate pressure on the Palestinians in Gaza and the west bank. It is also why we need to bring about a long-term settlement that can be accepted by the Israelis and Palestinians alike.