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Gaza

My Lords, I hope that I shall not do irreparable damage to the reputation of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, if I say that I agree with virtually every word of his remarkable and balanced intervention in this debate. Perhaps I may also say to my noble friend Lord Luce that his very wise words about keeping close to our friends in the Gulf and talking to Iran brought back memories of the remarkable activities of his father, Sir William Luce, in the Gulf in 1971, when he made a signal contribution to the safe withdrawal of our military forces from the Gulf. I make no apology for reverting today to a question that I have put many times to the Minister. Why are we not talking to Hamas? The Minister is no doubt briefed to reply that there is agreement within the quartet on the conditions which must be met before any of us can talk with what is still regarded as a fanatical Islamist terrorist group. I have three questions to put to the Minister. First, is he not aware that the envoy of the quartet, Mr Tony Blair, has now publicly—and, I hope, privately, in his meetings this week with senior members of President Obama’s Administration—expressed the view that we should talk to Hamas? Indeed, there are strong indications that other members of the quartet are already doing just that. Secondly, does he not accept that Hamas and its elected representatives are the effective authority in Gaza, in so far as any authority can operate effectively in that tragically damaged environment? Is our refusal to talk to that authority not delaying or blocking what the Minister referred to as the flow of aid, either humanitarian or for reconstruction, which Her Majesty’s Government are donating to the people of Gaza? The Minister referred to the presence of Sir John Holmes in Gaza. I hope that the Minister will confirm that he is not constrained as a member of the quartet—because the United Nations is a member of the quartet—and that he is able to have effective contacts with the elected authority; that is, Hamas. Thirdly, does the Minister not accept that, however much we may deplore the rockets fired from Gaza into Israel, as I am sure does the whole House, the responsibility for the repeated breakdown of the ceasefire lies on both sides of the border? There is, I think, no doubt that the ceasefire agreed in December was broken by an unpublicised incursion by the Israel Defence Forces, timed to coincide with the publicity surrounding the United States presidential election. Can the Minister confirm the headlines in the Lebanese press last week; namely, that Hamas had offered the Israelis a one-year ceasefire, but that it had been rejected on the grounds that Israel wanted a ceasefire of one year and a half? But do Israeli politicians really want that? It hardly squares with Mr Netanyahu’s promise this week that, if he is successful in the forthcoming elections, he will destroy Hamas—the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, asked what Israel’s strategy was; so much for that. It is high time that we recognise Hamas for what it is: a democratically elected resistance movement, with a readiness to talk, which draws its popular support from deep resentment, not only of the continued and expanding occupation of Palestinian territory but also of the appalling conditions under which the populations of both Gaza and the West Bank are forced to live.