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Israel and Palestine: Gaza

My Lords, both the noble Lords, Lord Astor of Hever and Lord Wallace, have essentially said, ““So far so good in terms of the ceasefire, but we need to go a lot further to build an enduring peace””. We on these Benches agree completely with that view—this is a start, but no more than that. We must move quickly to bolster what is obviously a fragile ceasefire. I shall take the points in order. The issue of the tunnels and the boats is a critical early step to get right because it is a confidence-building step for at least one side. I do not pretend that we yet have all the answers. Egypt has always maintained that as the sovereign power at one end of the tunnels it should be responsible for security in that regard and has never expressed much enthusiasm for an international force in that function. With regard to the boats—there is a big debate about how many of the arms come in by land and how many come in by sea—that is an area where the international community can make more of a contribution, hence the Prime Minister’s offer. It is certainly his expectation that it would not just be the UK but that a group of countries would provide boats if that were useful. Again, though, a whole series of questions need to be thought through about the right of interdiction at sea, the legal basis on which the boats would be operating, and many other issues. These are spontaneous initial responses to the situation and offers made in great seriousness to try to move this thing forward, but an effective regime of controlling arms smuggling, either underground or by sea, must be urgently developed. We will play whatever useful role we can in that, within the limitations of our military and naval capacities, as was pointed to by the noble Lord, Lord Astor. Both speakers said that we cannot stop there. Equally important in this first phase is ensuring that the crossings are opened. Here there may well ultimately be a role for an international monitoring force, under either the UN or some other international flag—there is some experience of that already. It must involve all crossings in order to ensure that adequate humanitarian access is achieved and that the economy of Gaza can be restarted. The level of destruction, as we have started to see today in the footage from journalists who have been able to regain access to Gaza, is truly horrendous and goes well beyond easily moved supplies such as food, medicines and water to fundamental infrastructure materials, a large volume of which needs to be brought in over a considerable period of time. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, expressed concern that the Arab peace initiative will not be there for ever. It seems like a long time ago, but before this dreadful conflict in Gaza started the Foreign Secretary toured the region, trying to build support for the Arab peace initiative. That was the main thrust of David Miliband’s Middle East visit, now six or seven weeks ago. He and the Government believe that it remains as important now as then, but it is right to say that it will not remain on the table for ever. A cost of this conflict is a polarisation and radicalisation of opinion in the Arab world as well as other places, which means that moderates have difficulty in holding on to their ground. If we are to move forward with the initiative, we must do so quickly. That takes us to the question of who runs Gaza and the role of Hamas in the political process. It is primarily, as the Statement said, for Palestinians to determine who runs Gaza; there must be a political process that will resolve the differences between the two Palestinian groups, Fatah and Hamas. There remain several ways that the Palestinians could choose to move that forward. One is to reunite again under the banner of the Palestinian Authority, which recognises the state of Israel and has sought a peaceful means to resolve these conflicts. If the authority became a unifying Government for the two halves of the Palestinian community, that would be a way forward. There is speculation among Palestinians that it may be easier to move to elections and elect fresh leadership. Ultimately, though, the Palestinians must resolve how to come together in a united way and negotiate not just with Israel but with the international community as well. If I may, I shall defend the Government and our Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary. Perhaps I am looking at this from the other end of the measuring stick, in a sense, but it seems that the Government have tried to show even-handedness in this conflict and we have not fallen into the trap of blind support for one side. The negotiation of the UN Security Council resolution, in which we played such a leading role, reflects that, and Israel’s anger at that resolution demonstrates that if offending both sides is the measure of neutrality—or if not neutrality, at least some balance—then it was a much better performance than that of several years ago, when the charge that there was not balance quickly enough in British policy in 2006 perhaps had more truth to it. On the arms issue, we want to stop a conflict that began because the Israelis were reacting to rocket attacks on their cities. We therefore want to prevent a revival of those rocket attacks, so preventing the resupply of those rockets is vital to building peace. There is inequality in arms supply; there is no way around it. Israel has a large domestic arms industry of its own. As I have assured the House before, we have sought, in the limited arms exports that we allow to Israel, not to export material that we think can be used to kill civilians or indeed can be used for repressive means. We will continue to review that policy, which has subsequently been reviewed in a judicial process that confirmed that it was living within the objectives set for it. However, I do not mean to detract from the argument that these issues of military supply and balance are key. I turn to the final point that was raised, the reconstruction and who will pay for it. I was pleased to hear today that the Saudi Government are contributing $1 billion to reconstruction, and I hope the Gulf countries will play a leading role in that. However, as I have said before in this House, and I think this is a widely shared sentiment, how many more times do we have to rebuild Gaza? There is an obligation on the parties to this conflict to bring this to an end and stop the shameless cycle of reconstruction and destruction.