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Queen's Speech

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Brittan, I believe that in a short space of time it is possible to deal with only one topic, and I propose to follow that example. Tempted though I am to follow the examples of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester in lamenting the lack of mention of the Commonwealth or Africa in the Queen’s Speech, I shall set that aside and content myself by wearing the restrained tie of the Royal Commonwealth Society instead. I turn to something that is actually in the gracious Speech, the sentence: "““My Government will press for a comprehensive peace settlement in the Middle East””." I wonder how many times a sentence such as that has appeared in the gracious Speech over the years. I hope that it is really meant—and I shall direct my remarks to that end. As a Liberal in politics, it is not very often that you get criticised for what your party has done in government—an experience common to Conservative and Labour politicians. In the 1966 election, when I sought re-election a year after my by-election, my wife knocked on the door in rural Roxburghshire and was told by the lady who answered that, much as she liked what I had been doing as the local MP, she could not possibly vote Liberal. ““Why is that?”” my wife asked. ““They wouldn’t send help for General Gordon,”” the lady answered. So I lost a vote on that account. I recall that when I became leader of the Liberal party, a lot of my Arab friends said that the Middle East situation was entirely my party’s fault. ““Why is that?”” I said—and was told that it was because of the Balfour declaration in 1917. However, I always defend the Balfour declaration and the creation of the state of Israel. People forget what was actually in it. I quote the essential words, which are, "““it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine””." Those very important words were echoed by that great Israeli statesman Abba Eban after the 1967 war. He was the country’s first UN representative and was then the Foreign Minister. He said, of the situation after 1967: "““The Jewish people fail to understand that there was something contractual in our entry into the world. We promised to share the territory. The present position (that is occupation of the Palestinian territories) is a deviation from our birth. I never knew of a country that could successfully throw its birth certificate away””." We need to remember words like that, and the words of the Balfour declaration, when we look at the situation in the Middle East today. I was very much motivated by interest in that part of the world in my experience as a very new, raw young MP attending a session of the General Assembly of the United Nations at a time, in 1967, when Lord Caradon was successfully negotiating resolution 242. I remember the euphoria in the British delegation at that time, and the great optimism that resolution 242 was the way forward to secure peace in the Middle East. That was 40 years ago, and we are nowhere nearer that peace. In 1980, I made my first visit of many to the region. I see the noble Lord, Lord Wright, in his place. We arrived in Damascus when he was ambassador there, and he was very kind to this callow, inexperienced politician, blundering around the Middle East for the first time and meeting with Yasser Arafat at a time when nobody would talk to him and it was not allowed to do so. But I, as an opposition politician, could do so, and did frequently over the years. I had the great privilege, too, of meeting over the years two great peacemakers in the Middle East who paid with their lives for what they did—President Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Rabin of Israel. My most recent visit was earlier this year, in a group of European politicians. We met Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas, and I came away feeling slightly optimistic. I thought that they were two people, certainly in private discussion, who recognised that they would have to make compromises on both sides if peace was going to be achieved, and they both appeared determined. Yet nothing has happened. The one ray of light in all this is that the people of Israel seem to be well ahead of their politicians, as every opinion poll shows that they are desperate to see a peace settlement with the two-state solution that has long been advocated. I hope very much therefore that the sentence in the gracious Speech is meaningful, real and will be pursued with real purpose. The truth of the matter is that at present the Government of Israel are flouting international law in many respects, with the continued building of the settlements and the route of the wall. Of course, we accept that any nation has the right to create a wall to defend itself; 1,000 Israeli citizens have been killed in recent years by terrorist attacks and rocket launches from terrorist organisations. But the fact is that the route of the wall is illegal, not only in the eyes of international law but as specified by the Supreme Court in Israel itself. Its judgment says: "““Only a separation fence built on the tenets of justice will afford security””." It also said that the security wall caused ““unjustified hardship”” to thousands of Palestinians. That is undeniably true. The Government in Israel are operating against both international law and the decision of their Supreme Court. As for the situation in Gaza, that is an absolute disgrace. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, who has been there recently, filled out in some detail what he found, because it saves me having to repeat what is happening, particularly in the hospitals, with the deaths resulting from cutting off electricity. The blockage of UN food supply trucks and fuel supplies for electricity generation is an absolute scandal. Indeed, the sewage treatment works are breaking down, with, as a result, poor quality drinking water and raw sewage spilling out into the Mediterranean. It gets worse than that; only two Sundays ago, the Papal Nuncio—the Archbishop of Jerusalem—who was going to Gaza to conduct Advent mass for the Christian community there, was stopped at the Gaza checkpoint for three hours and then turned away. The small Christian community there was deprived of its mass. These sorts of petty vindictive actions by the Israeli Government really should be denounced firmly by Governments. It is important that we operate collectively with our European partners. After all, we have an international trade association agreement with Israel which benefits that country. It is time that we said to it, ““That international agreement is dependent on you sustaining international law””, and that the collective punishment being meted out on Gaza is quite unacceptable. The same disproportionate response was obvious when I visited Lebanon also earlier this year and saw the results of the Israeli invasion. The scale of destruction in Beirut was simply unbelievable. Apart from the loss of life, the wanton destruction of road bridges throughout the country seemed absolutely extraordinary, and we allow a country to get away with this time after time. Is there a chance of the peace initiative working? I applaud the recent visit to Syria of the Foreign Secretary; I hope that that was part of the process, but the Arab peace initiative of 2002 has not been followed up properly. Here for the first time was a statement by 57 Arab and Muslim countries, which said that they would establish full diplomatic and normal relations with Israel in return for a comprehensive peace agreement and the ending of the occupation. Surely it is time that we used all our collective strength to bring about that peace agreement. It is no use relying simply on the United States, although I hope that the new President will have a more sensible policy, but the countries with a real historic interest in the region are the United Kingdom and France. We should be using our muscle power in Europe to bring about that peace agreement. If we do not, apart from the hardship to the Palestinian people, of which the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, has spoken, there are two other consequences of the failure to reach an agreement. One is the continued spread of international terror. I am not one of those who is naive and believes that if we could solve the Palestinian problem international terror would cease, but there is no doubt in my mind that all the fundamentalists, whether they be Islamic fundamentalists, Zionist fundamentalists or the Christian fundamentalists in the United States, feed on the terrible situation in the Middle East. As long as we fail to settle that, fundamentalism will continue to draw new recruits. The second consequence, of course, is the spread of a vile kind of anti-Semitism which we had hoped not to see in this country. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bath and Wells quoted the Chief Rabbi, one of the great spiritual leaders of our country. He has said, even before the present blockade of Gaza, that things are happening on a daily basis in Israel which make him ““uncomfortable as a Jew””. It is important that those of us who sign up as friends of Israel should be candid friends of Israel, and Governments who are friends of that country should be not just candid friends, but forceful friends.