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Israel

My Lords, it is high time that this House had the opportunity to debate the state of the Middle East peace process—not, alas, because the situation is developing so fast, but because it is not moving ahead at all and simply goes round in circles. That form of stasis has major negative security consequences for this country and the rest of Europe. We delude ourselves if we think that the current deadlock can safely be dismissed with a shrug of cynical indifference. The Middle East, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Experience shows that a further outbreak of violence is unlikely to be avoidable if the parties cannot be brought back to the negotiating table. The noble Lord, Lord Dykes, is to be congratulated on initiating this debate in the closing days of this Parliament. It is right, too, that we should focus our attention in the debate on the role of the Government of Israel and on their current disregard for international law. For all the shared responsibility between the two sides that has existed over the past 60 years—the shared responsibility for the failure to reach a negotiated settlement—it is the present Israeli Government who, by their words and deeds, now represent the biggest obstacle to making progress. Take the decision to site the security wall not on the ceasefire line but in many places well within occupied Palestinian territory, and to continue its construction even after the International Court of Justice ruled that the siting was illegal. Take the incredibly offensive and maladroit announcement of further settlement building in east Jerusalem, which scuppered the latest US initiative to resume peace talks. Take the remarks of the Israeli Prime Minister to the recent APEC meeting in Washington that there could be no talk of settlements in east Jerusalem, because the whole of that city rightfully belonged to Israel and east Jerusalem was not therefore occupied territory at all and not covered by the Geneva conventions. Those are just three examples of clear breaches of international law, as clear as it is possible to imagine. The fact that Israel is a working and respected democracy, which is often rightly cited as a factor in its favour, only compounds its errors. What, then, is to be done if the international community is not simply to acquiesce in this defiance of international law and the consequent lack of any negotiating process? We must certainly not abandon our wholehearted support for the initiative taken by President Obama when, on his first day in office, he appointed Senator George Mitchell to revive the negotiating process and later when, in his Cairo speech, he spelled out so eloquently the case for a negotiated solution. Some have suggested that the US made an error in insisting on a cessation of settlement building as part of that process, but the recent Israeli announcements have surely demonstrated that Israeli opponents of a two-state solution were never going to allow the settlement issue to be finessed. Moreover, getting on to the negotiating table US-backed ideas for the necessary compromises on the key substantive issues—territory, security, Jerusalem and refugees—is far the best way of moving ahead, whether through a direct or an indirect negotiating process. I hope that the British Government, both pre and post-election, will press ahead down that road and urge the US Administration to put those cards on the table. Should we be contemplating negative action against an Israeli Government who are showing such blatant disregard for their international obligations? Surely some carefully calibrated political and diplomatic action is, indeed, desirable and justified. Here, too, President Obama has shown the way in the presentational handling of the Israeli Prime Minister’s visit to Washington. Others, like ourselves, could usefully follow that pattern in our official contacts—correct, but no warmth and no photo opportunities. Could we not collectively go a bit further and remove from Israel that cover which we, and most of all the US, provide against criticism and condemnation of Israeli government policies at the United Nations? Such evidence of diplomatic isolation, so long as it avoided offensive rhetoric and stuck firmly to the parameters of agreed international law, could bring home to ordinary Israelis where their present Government’s policies were leading them. It would be wrong, I suspect, to make no mention in this debate of the other side of the peacemaking equation. I, and others in this House, have long argued for an inclusive approach to the Arab side. I should like to be clear: that would not include negotiating with Hamas at this stage, let alone concluding an agreement with it. However, it would involve talking to Hamas and agreeing publicly to deal directly with it, if it and Fatah were to reach agreement on a unity Government for the Palestinian territories that were prepared to base themselves on the Arab peace initiative. I would hope that the Government could give further consideration to that sort of approach, rather than simply endlessly repeating the mantra of the quartet’s preconditions—now distinctly shop-soiled. It is not easy to be optimistic in the short term. Occasionally, Back-Benchers can say something that those on the Front Benches cannot, so I hazard the personal view that progress will not be made so long as the present configuration of the Israeli Government persists. The extremists simply have too strong a grip on the present Government’s policy and are fundamentally opposed to a two-state solution, whatever Prime Minister Netanyahu may say. Alas, we have to watch—and it eludes me as to how this can continue—the party of Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Abba Eban justifying and sustaining that configuration of the Israeli Government, so the international community, including its Arab component, may need to be both patient and persistent. What we should not do is to cease giving this issue the priority and engagement that it requires.