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Gaza

My Lords, I am sure that we are all very grateful to the Minister for repeating this long, sombre, but very important Statement. I am sure that he accepts that we on this side of the House—and, I suspect, all your Lordships—fully share in the universal grief over the sickening, tragic and unbearable nature of what has occurred and is occurring—the dreadful fatalities and casualties among civilians, the 250 children dead as the Statement reminded us, whole families in the Gaza Strip wiped out, and the fear and deaths on the Israeli side brought about by the unending rain of rockets and missiles on people’s homes and towns, bringing all normal life to a standstill. Indeed, as the Statement reminded us, 300 rockets fell between the 19 and 27 December alone, paralysing life in nearby Israeli towns. Does he Minister agree that, at least at this moment, there is little to be gained from the blame game of how the truce of last June came to such a violent end? The New Statesman must be right in describing the resumed Hamas firing of rockets into Sderot, Beersheba and other Israeli towns as ““a grotesque and pointless provocation””. We welcome UN Security Council Resolution 1860 and the work that went into achieving it, but does the Minister agree that the central and urgent task now is a ceasefire on both sides, of which the main components are very obvious; namely, a firm halt to the rocket and missile attacks and the smuggling-in of new and more sophisticated missile weapons on the Hamas side, and the end of the fearsome bombing and an opening of the borders on the Israeli side, allowing humanitarian emergency aid at last to go ahead full steam where it is so vitally needed? Is not the first move on both sides one of psychology, almost of states of mind? Do not the combatants, any mediators and the international community have to stretch their minds? This requires big minds to look with compassion both on the terrified and besieged people of Gaza, among whom the militant Hamas has embedded itself, and on the people of Israel, who live in fear or have been destroyed by the awful randomness of rocket fire. That said, since Israel is clearly the dominant military power, is it not bound now to have to make the first unblocking move by stopping the bombing and the ground raids, whether or not it thinks that it has crushed Hamas, which is probably a completely impossible objective anyway? Does not any such move have to be followed immediately by an end of the rocketry and, after that, by Israel’s lifting of the sanctions on Gaza to allow in food, water, electricity and vital supplies—and, on the Hamas side, a halt to the constant smuggling in of weapons from the tunnels that have their entrance in the Sinai desert? Beyond that, can the Minister say more on what is envisaged for the all-important role of the international force, which will be necessary to supervise this initial agreement and open the way for more agreements and, eventually, a massive rebuilding of ruined Gaza? What are the particular British skills, diplomatic and technical, that can be brought to bear in constructing that pathway? Does the Minister agree with the wise words reported yesterday of Prince Turki-al Faisal, the former Saudi ambassador here, known to many of your Lordships, who has counselled not only a stronger American line from the new Obama Administration but a new security co-operation body for the region, which would include not only the United States but also the EU countries as well as Russia, India, China and Egypt, along with the Gulf Co-operation Council states and those of the Arab peninsula? Might it not be this grouping, not just another western line-up, that could then press successfully for a major reconstruction and a reunification of the whole of Palestine, which has been split by the Hamas-Al Fatah rivalry, and for the Israelis finally to curb their more extreme settlers and tell those living in what will patently be Palestine that they must become citizens of a Palestinian state and live by its laws, or go? A climate of discourse simply must replace the climate of hate and extremism that now dominates. That is the only way in which Israel will ever get security and the only way in which a united Palestine will come into being. It is also the only way in which the rest of the region can ever hope for stability, rather than war without end, hatred on the streets and the deliberate promotion of nihilist revolution and chaos by Iran—even though Iran is Shia and Hamas are Sunnis—and by Iran’s other surrogates. We have unique experience and understanding to contribute to this better future and we therefore hope that the Government are putting forward to the Obama team ideas and perspectives that can lead America to play a much more constructive role and help to prevent the whole scene cascading into a wider and even more dangerous zone of war and total destabilisation.