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Israel

My Lords, unlike the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, I welcome my noble friend’s achievement in getting this debate at this time. I find it quite remarkable that it is suggested that these Benches have ignored questions like Zimbabwe, Burma and Tibet, particularly when one notes some of my colleagues, the noble Lords behind me. I start by emphasising, as a number of colleagues have, that this debate is about the policies of the current Israeli Government. There are many in Israel, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, emphasised quite rightly, who desperately want to see progress. Opinion poll after opinion poll over the years, whoever has been in government, has demonstrated—and in fairness the noble Baroness pointed this out—that the majority of Israeli people are prepared to do a deal for peace. As the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, pointed out, it is not that Israel is a heartless country, it is a divided country. That is absolutely right. Israel is not simply a country with a Jewish population. There is a Jewish population—very importantly, and it is a homeland for Jewish people who choose to live there—but there is also a significant Arab population. Very importantly, NGOs and others do a great deal of marvellous work. Here I declare an interest as a patron of the Abraham Fund UK, which raises funds in order to try to help Arab and Jewish Israelis work together to build a multicultural society there. There are lots of other organisations—Hand in Hand in schools, the Jerusalem Foundation, Friendship Village and so many others. This is not about Israeli people, many of whom, to my certain knowledge from speaking with and listening to them, desperately want peace, but it is a question of whether the current policies of the current Government are moving in the right direction. I confess that when the Government came together I rather abandoned the hope that there would be much progress on the Palestinian front in the short term, so I made it my business to return to Damascus and met again with the foreign minister, Walid Muallem, to talk about the possibilities of improving the relationship between Israel and Syria. It seemed to me that the current Government might have a little better hope of making progress on that front if they wished. He made it clear that the return of the Golan—no one, not even the Israeli Government disputes that the Golan is Syrian territory—might not necessarily happen overnight, but he said that if half of it were to be returned, there would be an end to enmity; if three-quarters of it were to be returned, an Israeli section could be opened in the US embassy in Damascus; and once all of it were returned, there could be an Israeli embassy in Damascus and a Syrian embassy in Tel Aviv. Of course, that would not mean that the Palestinian questions would be attended to, but the relationship between Syria and Israel would be changed dramatically. Within a couple of weeks, the former Prime Minister Mr Barak indicated that he thought that there might well be more war between Israel and Syria and Foreign Minister Lieberman declared that the Syrians just had to accept that they would never get the Golan back. I do not immediately enter into the question of the West Bank and Gaza. I know all the complexities, but here is a situation where Syria was prepared to move forward and where Turkey and the Turkish Prime Minister, who was referred to earlier by my noble friend, were prepared to intercede. Yet the response was to talk about war, when it was not on anyone else's agenda and to say that there would be no return of what is, undeniably and internationally agreed, Syrian territory. That takes us to the nub of the problem. There seems to be a belief in Israel that, whether it is Syrian territory, south Lebanese territory or Palestinian territory, if Israel feels threatened, it is perfectly all right to occupy land for six months, six years or 60 years without any apparent appreciation that that very occupation, in the medium and long term, does not contribute to Israeli security but stimulates resistance—violent resistance—when it cannot be resolved. This is not a matter of being for Israel's security or against Israel’s security; it is about seeing the long term. I see the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, shaking his head and I am reminded of one of the leaders of the Ulster Unionist Party, who was involved in militant activity in the early 1970s. I see the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis of Drumglass, in his place and it was certainly not him. Many years later, he came to me and said, "John, I wish we had done what your predecessors were advising at that time because we could have had a good deal then and now we are in an impossible situation". If, many years before, the views of the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis of Drumglass, had been followed by his colleagues, we would have had a very different situation and many lives would have been saved in our country. One has to be careful that what one seeks in the name of security is actually the best way of achieving the security that one wants. At the time of the debate on Gaza—I will not go into the situation there—I warned that things would not improve for Israel. Two days after the awful earthquake in Haiti, General Petraeus, the commander of CENTCOM, took a number of his colleagues to meet the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mullen, to give him an account of what they had found after he had sent a team to all the countries in the region. The response was: "General Mullen, you need to understand that in every single one of those countries, the American interest, the American standing is collapsing partly, at least, because of the stance that we are taking on this matter and, furthermore, American lives are at risk in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan partly because of that". General Petraeus was saying something very similar to what I am saying. That went to the White House. Admiral Mullen then went to Israel to try to get across to the Israelis the cost to them. That was why there was such deep anger and why Vice-President Joe Biden was received as he was. The Americans believed that they had got the message across that this was not of academic interest, this was not merely a question of national security, but this was American lives that were at stake and that put a whole new complexion on it. If that is the case for American lives in the region, and we are a true and firm ally and friend of Israel, we should not assume that it is merely an academic or indeed altruistic question from our point of view. Some of our brave men and women who are serving—thankfully no longer, in most cases, in Iraq, but in Afghanistan and in relation to Pakistan—find themselves at risk because this issue is not being resolved and attended to. That is the passionate concern and commitment of those on these Benches. The reason for obtaining a debate was to try to keep the matter to the fore. It is in our national interest to see this matter resolved. The noble Lord, Lord Haskel, said, "What you do about terror and terrorism?". Please do not get me started; it is a long journey. You have to talk to people you might not ever want to talk to. You have to accept things that you might not want to accept. However, I say for certain and without any fear of contradiction, the longer you leave it before you start on the road, the longer and more painful the road becomes; the sooner we return to the rule of law in the region, and the sooner we all recognise that, the better it will be for our people as well as for all the long-suffering people in the region, Israeli and non-Israeli.