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Gaza

My Lords, I am associated with an Arab organisation that is a shareholder in the Gaza power station, and with the offshore Gaza gas fields; the British company, BG, is the operator. For the avoidance of doubt, however, my remarks are purely personal. Noble Lords may remember the time when Jew and Arab worked not just side by side but together. That was before regional politics and international engagement. Since then, some suggest that Israel has an eretz Israel, a greater Israel, as the endgame; as the saying goes, ““From the sea to the river””. That agenda must be stopped dead in its tracks. The world is the loser as a result of this latest incursion. The UN has shown itself to be impotent, the United States has not been exercising its world status with any distinction, and Israel has shown that it cannot win the war or peace on its terms. Israel is not ready for peace, and the US is not ready to pressure for that peace. The biggest factor that is missing is hope; it is lacking throughout the peace process. Everything can be resolved if the will is there. We await the answer to the question of whether President Obama can or will deliver. The good news is that during his pre-election visit to Ramallah, it was felt that he was at least saying the right things. In addition, Senator Mitchell’s engagement can be only to the good. Much hinges on his experience. However, the perception hitherto is that the preferred US agenda in the Middle East can be summarised in two words; namely, oil and Israel. The reality is that nothing has changed since Madrid. Oslo addressed safe passage between Gaza and the West Bank, a distance of just 43 kilometres. But what do we have? There is a wall, illegal settlements, a crippled economy and the shut down of movement of the people. Let us be clear, Gaza is a ghetto. To give some idea of the effects of the restrictions, a journey from Bethlehem to Ramallah, that should take 35 minutes with the random checkpoints, can take anywhere from three to four hours. However, that said, where do we go from here? The short-term goals must be ceasefire first, consolidate the truce and then reconciliation. Beyond that, the breakdown of Fatah and, by extension, the effectiveness of President Abbas; the Fatah/Hamas relationship; the Hamas/Hezbollah question and the Syria/Iran issue all need to be resolved. Let us hope that the reconciliation process between Hamas and Fatah with Egypt’s good offices will bear fruit and a unified approach can be taken to Palestinian affairs. A thorn in the side of reconciliation is the Hamas Syria/Iran relationship, as is that of Hezbollah. The influence of Syria in Lebanon with the settlement of the Golan Heights question is key, with outstanding matters in relation to the UN court giving the former angst. The effect of Syria in the fold would be to neutralise Hamas and Hezbollah, and isolate a manipulative Iran from this arena. The UK could do much to facilitate an understanding of the importance of this by the US, allowing for the Iran question to be tackled in isolation. I applaud the potential US position of direct dialogue. My visits in the past to Tehran bore out the benefits of such. It is crucial that the European Union is recognised as a partner for peace, not to replace the US but to work alongside it as equals. Currently, neither the United States nor Israel wish this, but while the Americans demonstrate only blind support for Israel, they cannot be taken seriously as a mediator. The United Nations and Russia are deemed to be contributing nothing, leaving the Palestinians to take on the US/Israel axis alone. My immediate wish list would be, first, that the US should be more serious and equal-handed in its engagement; secondly, that there should be a recognition of the two-state solution as paramount; thirdly, that there should be involvement of the world community, but particularly a political will from the European Union, to engage and play a significant role in the process; and, finally, that there should be the creation of an Arab Marshall Plan, with Arabs sharing their wealth for the cause of peace. The future relevance of the nation state is numbered or, at the least, increasingly irrelevant. Why is regionalism not promoted more? By that, I mean the sharing of resources and responsibilities. After all, Israel’s future and security safety-net are not with the US but with the Arab world, which would allow for two viable neighbouring states to live in harmony. One of the difficulties that face regional democracies, however, is ever-changing political arenas. Multiple administrations in Israel, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, in one form or another, exercise the minds. What if Hamas won an election, which, again, was deemed free and fair? Would the British Government accept the result? Care has to be taken in professing an agenda for free and fair elections and then expressing concern at the outcome. The effects of the West accepting the Algerian military cancelling pending election results in 1992, favouring the Islamic Front, were a disaster. The reality is that in the future, legitimate Islamic states will be born. Let us hope that there is tolerance of differing ideology. Allow me at this juncture to agree with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Wright of Richmond, about the need for dialogue and therefore an understanding of, and the ability to impact, the likes of Hamas. Marginalisation, as we know to our cost, is and will be a root cause of conflict. In conclusion, I see the final geography of a Palestinian state being that of 1967, free of settlements. That represents just 22 per cent of the original British mandate. Nothing less, in my view, will work. Israel, however, has not signalled its readiness to give up the West Bank, so we live in limbo-land. Until that time, the essence of the problem—self-perpetuating hopelessness and despair—will continue.