Moved by Lord Steel of Aikwood
That this House takes note of the Resolution of the House of Commons of 13 October 2014 that “this House believes that the Government should recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel, as a contribution to securing a negotiated two-state solution”, and that this recommendation has also been adopted by the European Parliament, and the Parliaments of Sweden, France, Ireland, Portugal and Luxembourg.
Lord Steel of Aikwood (LD): My Lords, we might now add Spain to the words of the Motion. I am gratified that so many Members wish to take part in the debate, and I am conscious that the House expects to rise at seven o’clock. I join in that expectation, as I am booked on the last plane to Edinburgh, so I will attempt to be brief in my opening remarks.
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First, I declare two interests. I was for seven years president of the excellent charity Medical Aid to the Palestinians. I am delighted that the current president, my noble friend Lady Morris of Bolton, will be taking part in the debate. Secondly, I am a paid-up member of the Friends of Israel, for the very good reason that I think that it is important always to distinguish between the State of Israel and the policies of the present Government of Israel. They are not the same, and too many people equate the two rather sloppily.
When I was leader of the Liberal Party, my Palestinian friends used to say, “It’s all your fault. It was under a Liberal Administration that the Balfour Declaration was first promulgated in 1917”. I am very proud of that, but I also remind people of the second part of that declaration, which states,
“it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”.
I am afraid it is that section of the Balfour Declaration which has so often been forgotten.
As a young MP, I went on the parliamentary delegation to the General Assembly of the UN in 1967. I remember the excitement and enthusiasm of sitting in on the meetings with Lord Caradon, who was then our representative at the UN, when we secured UN Security Council Resolution 242. There was a sense then that this was the start of a really effective peace process, after the war in that area. How sad it is that more than 45 years later, we have to say that that optimism was completely misplaced.
Then in 1980, when I was party leader, I took a delegation of six colleagues around the Middle East to study the situation in detail. We were extremely well received by Heads of Government including President Assad in Syria—the dictatorial father of the current President—President Sarkis in the Lebanon, President Sadat in Egypt and King Hussein in Jordan. The one place where we were not received by the Head of Government was Israel. Why? Because Prime Minister Begin disapproved of the fact that in Damascus, we had had the temerity to have a meeting with Mr Yasser Arafat, the leader of the PLO. The fact that we had spent time in that meeting trying to argue him out of a section of the PLO covenant and into recognising the State of Israel was beside the point. We had spoken with the unspeakable. It is interesting how history repeats itself: just as it would not speak to the PLO then it will not speak to Hamas now, for exactly the same reasons.
On other occasions, I have visited the border towns in Israel of Sederot and Ashkelon. I therefore fully understand the sense of fear and terror under which they have to live, with the quite unacceptable raining down of rockets from Gaza on to these communities. These are not only disastrous but positively counterproductive for the peace process. The rockets of course inflict casualties on the citizens of Israel, but none of these casualties justifies the reaction of the Government of Israel in their two invasions of the Gaza Strip: in 2009, Operation Cast Lead, and, in 2014, Operation Protective Edge. In the first invasion, some 1,400 Palestinians were killed and in the second
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some 2,500—500 of them children. I visited Gaza again after Operation Cast Lead and I find it difficult to describe in the House the scale of the devastation that had been inflicted, never mind the deaths. Houses, schools, factories and even hospitals were destroyed in that operation. Indeed, I am surprised that there has not been a stronger reaction among the taxpayers of the European Union and the United States, considering that the airport opened by President Clinton in 1998 was destroyed. That airport cost us $86 million.
In 2002, the Arab Heads of State launched the Arab peace initiative, which promised to fly the Israeli flag in embassies in every Arab capital. It was an amazing breakthrough, repeated in 2007. Last year, some of us had the privilege of meeting upstairs in a committee room a group of Israeli businessmen. I say that they were businessmen because they stressed that they were not politicians. They were launching an Israeli peace initiative in response to the Arab peace initiative, and arguing that the peace process really ought to be conducted at international level by the Heads of Government. That is still a compelling process, given that the Israelis and Palestinians seem unable to reach any kind of peace agreement themselves.
Unfortunately, the present Government of Israel under Mr Netanyahu have consistently rejected those initiatives and continue to build settlements on the West Bank, now occupied by half a million citizens of Israel. They are, of course, totally illegal, as defined by the international court. Mr Netanyahu rejects that court: he even rejects the Israeli Supreme Court when it criticises the route of the security wall. Israel does not like the reference to apartheid, but the separate roads on the West Bank that can be travelled on only by Israeli citizens, and which I saw on recent visits, are strongly reminiscent of what I used to find in South Africa, as is the expulsion of Palestinians from Israel itself. In 2012, the 27 European Foreign Ministers issued a report saying that the attitude of the present Government of Israel threatens,
“to make the two-state solution impossible”.
The truth is that, under the present Administration, Israel has been losing friends. The one stroke of comfort we can take is that current opinion polls indicate that the Government may lose office in the coming election and be replaced by something a good deal better.
Why should we now echo what the House of Commons has already done? I use the words of our consul-general in Jerusalem, Sir Vincent Fean:
“The voices of moderation on both sides need encouragement. Those Palestinians who eschew violence and practise security cooperation with Israel need something to show for their pains—to prove that their peaceful efforts, not indiscriminate Hamas violence, will lead to two states”.
We are sending a signal from this House that we welcome and echo what the elected House has already done.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con): I respectfully remind your Lordships that we have suggested an advisory time of four minutes to enable the House to rise at its customary time of 7 pm. It would be very much appreciated if your Lordships could keep to that advisory time.
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4.41 pm
Lord Cope of Berkeley (Con): My Lords, when we discussed this part of the world on 30 October, I explained my involvement with Palestine resulting from my wife’s family having settled in Jerusalem for Christian reasons 150 years ago. I have, therefore, been visiting Palestine for over 45 years. I have seen for myself the problems on the ground and I have seen them get worse. I believe it is time—indeed it is overdue—that the UK recognises Palestine as a country. We all know that the 1967 borders need land swaps by agreement, but that is still the internationally agreed border. Some countries with disputed borders have long been recognised as states, including Israel itself. Many other countries without our historic responsibilities for the problems she faces, which my noble friend Lord Steel referred to in his excellent and moderate introduction, have recognised Palestine.
I believe recognition by the UK would help towards a settlement. The two-state solution needs two states to negotiate and agree. The PLO committed itself to recognising Israel over 20 years ago, in 1993. However, Israel not only still refuses to recognise Palestine but builds all over it. As has been said, settlement building is against international law. It is highly aggressive and provocative, particularly just now around Jerusalem. In this dispute, the extremists on each side constantly quote the words and actions of the extremists on the other side and squeeze out the moderates in the middle. Like my noble friend, I believe that recognition would give the Palestinian moderates a real boost and encourage the Israeli moderates to try and get their Government to negotiate properly with their neighbours. Many Israelis, like those quoted by my noble friend, recognise the truth that aggressive, illegal occupation will not work in the end. It is not the road to peace. The world cannot accept, and has not accepted, that a state can steal other people’s land by force and build over it.
For the UK, recognition would mean that at last we had tried to redeem our historic pledges, in so far as we still can, to respect the interests of the pre-existing inhabitants in creating what was called the national home for the Jewish people. I sincerely hope that on 17 March the very difficult Israeli electoral system will result in a long-sighted Government who realise that without a two-state solution Israel will never be at peace with its neighbours. Meanwhile, let us show our support for the two-state solution by recognising the second state involved in it.
4.45 pm
Baroness Blackstone (Lab): My Lords, I support the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Steel. The present impasse in reaching a negotiated settlement is a tragedy not just for Palestine but for Israel. The failure of the peace process after 20 years leaves Palestinians as oppressed, stateless people, but it also leaves Israelis still fearful about their security and citizens of a country drifting towards becoming a pariah state because of their current leaders’ lack of respect for international law. Only last July, Netanyahu ruled out ever accepting a Palestinian state on the West Bank. Ever more illegal settlements make a two-state solution increasingly unviable, suggesting
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that he rejects its establishment. Can anyone believe that this is in the long-term interest of Israel, let alone Palestine?
All political parties in the UK have long supported a two-state solution. There is now a consensus that every effort should be made to establish this without greater prevarication and delay. Action, not words, is now needed. After many failures in the US-brokered bilateral negotiations, it is time to accept the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel. I suggest that those speakers in this debate who will say it is premature are wrong. Perhaps they should be reminded of the history of the state of Israel. In 1920, as the holder of the mandate for Palestine, we made a commitment to guide Palestinians to statehood and independence. For those who may argue later that Palestine does not have the attributes of a state, a reminder is needed about the circumstances in which Israel was recognised as a state in 1948: it had no effective Government; there were warring factions, including the terrorist Stern gang; its borders were unclear; and it had no capital city. Nevertheless it was recognised, rightly, and it is now right to recognise Palestine as a state, taking the 1967 borders as the basis for its territory.
I also want to refute the view that the Israeli Government have a right of veto over the future of Palestine as a state. In exercising such a veto, they are denying the Palestinian people the dignity associated with self-determination that they so deeply crave and which the Israelis also wanted after 1947. No wonder the Palestinians are now seeking a unilateral route rather than relying only on the increasingly futile bilateral negotiations. It would be easier to sympathise with the view that an agreed settlement involving Israel is the only right route had successive Israeli Governments respected international law, discontinued the blockade of Gaza and ended the occupation of the West Bank. Instead they have annexed more land, destroyed the infrastructure of Gaza last summer—killing many innocent people, half of whom were children—and continued the daily harassment of ordinary people on the West Bank.
I make a plea to those who have come to this debate to speak against the resolution: please think about what it is like to be a young person in Palestine. They have grown up experiencing oppression and misery, their older relatives being stripped of their land and a blighted economy. Their hopes of self-determination are dashed with every failure of the peace process. If we want them to reject violence, as surely we should, we must give them hope. To support the recognition of Palestine as a state will of course not be a total solution, but it will be a message to them of our belief in their right to self-determination and a symbol of our support for it. In politics, symbols sometimes matter.
4.49 pm
Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD): My Lords, I share the views expressed by those who have already spoken of the importance of this House indicating that it agrees with the House of Commons on the question of the recognition of Palestine as a state. I will say just two things in the short time that I have.
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First, those of us who care very deeply about the survival of Israel are extremely puzzled by how there can be any plan for survival in the outcome of the many, many years of argumentation—ending almost invariably in the breakdown of negotiations—that we have now seen over the last 40 years. That essentially means that there is no plan for a long-term dual state—Israel and Palestine—implicit in the discussions that are going ahead at the present time. If we believe that there should be a single state, that single state cannot be a Jewish state and cannot be a democratic state. It is very hard to see how we can bring those three essential things together: democracy, the existence of a Jewish state, and the survival of peace in the Middle East.
I therefore want to ask the following question: what kind of future without a two-state solution can we see? Is there any voice from the Israeli Prime Minister or, for that matter, any other of those concerned with peace in the Middle East, that suggests that there is any solution other than a two-state solution? That two-state solution is literally slipping through our fingers as we talk. There is probably only, at best, a few months left to see a viable Palestine that could survive. That viable Palestine is shrinking by the month because of the steady extension of settlements on the West Bank and, of course, in Gaza.
Secondly, one of the great opportunities that we now have is represented by the acceptance of Palestine as an observer state—albeit not a full state—of the United Nations, coupled with its signature of the International Criminal Court treaty. The International Criminal Court has had a hard time, but one of the things that it has clearly indicated over and over again is its objectivity and its willingness to look at both sides of the issues that come before it. The commitment of Palestine to the concept of international law that is implicit in its signature of the International Criminal Court treaty is of the greatest possible importance. It could pave the way to a recognition in other Arab states of the role that the ICC should have in the steady development of the rule of law internationally. The fact that the International Criminal Court has shown the courage to align people with bad records on human rights and records of tyranny, even in cases where the political weight is often against it, suggests just how important this step could be.
In conclusion—and I want to repeat it as strongly as I possibly can, not least in the light of what has just been said by the noble Lord, Lord Cope, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone—many of us deeply want to see the survival of Israel. We want to see it as a Jewish state; we want to see it as a guarantor that there is no future in anti-Semitism. However, we cannot hope to achieve these things if the state of Palestine continues to be unrecognised, dishonoured, abused, and relegated to a lesser marginal role. I, for one, would like to say to those of my colleagues from the United States who have had the amazing effrontery to suggest that there should be a punishment for the attempt of Palestine to receive membership of the International Criminal Court, which would involve the cutting off of American aid to the Palestinian Authority, that that is a complete distortion of what is
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meant by the rule of law and one that I hope that we in the United Kingdom will agree next time to stand up against.
4.54 pm
Lord Pannick (CB): My Lords, there is of course another side to this debate. The United Kingdom is in good company in not recognising a state of Palestine. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Denmark and many other European nations have not yet recognised a state of Palestine—and for good reason. Sympathetic though we all are to the sufferings of the unfortunate Palestinian people, recognising a state of Palestine at this time would hinder rather than promote a peace settlement. It would hinder a peace settlement because what is needed on both sides is to focus attention on the painful compromises that have to be made in bilateral negotiations. Yes; painful compromises are required from the Israeli side, and I know how difficult they will find it—I have an Israeli wife.
On the Palestinian side, which of course we are debating today, instead of the distraction of grandstanding international gestures, Palestinians need unequivocally to accept that the State of Israel is here to stay. They must give up the notion of a right to live in Haifa or Be’er Sheva. They need to throw away the schoolbooks that demonise Jews and deny that the Holocaust occurred, and unequivocally to condemn the attacks from Gaza and the suicide bombers, who are responsible for the blighting of the lives of other Palestinians, which we have heard about today.
Perhaps most of all, they need to recognise that Israel, for all its faults—and which society does not have faults?—has much to teach Palestinians, if only they would listen, about how a society born out of tragedy can promote free speech, democracy, the rule of law, scientific and literary achievements and, yes, prosperity for its people, with standards achieved in very few other places in the world, and of course none in the Middle East, all in the 66 years since its creation—a quite astonishing achievement in the most difficult of circumstances, surrounded by people who wish to destroy you.
Last week, a Palestinian man from the West Bank stabbed 10 people in an unprovoked attack on a bus in Tel Aviv. The New York Times reported that the assailant told police he was hoping to reach paradise—I assume he had not intended Tel Aviv to be his final destination. The London Times reported the response from Hamas. It was, it said, a “heroic and daring operation”. I will tell the House what would truly be heroic: for the Palestinian leadership to abandon gesture politics in the United Nations and take the hard and painful decisions that are necessary to secure peace in the only place it can be achieved—at the negotiating table.
4.57 pm
Baroness Warsi (Con): My Lords, I start with the premise that in an ideal world a negotiated settlement between any two parties in a dispute is preferred. However, let us try today to understand why the Palestinians have adopted the UN route, and why Israel opposes that route.
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I visited Israel and Palestine in December with Medical Aid for Palestinians and the Council for Arab-British Understanding, with my noble friend Lady Morris, as declared in my register of interests. I met with international agencies, human rights campaigners, lawyers and politicians, but the most moving meeting was with a group called Breaking the Silence. They are former Israel Defense Forces soldiers, now speaking out against Israeli government policy in the Occupied Territories. They wanted neither praise for their bravery, nor sympathy for the abuse they receive in Israel for speaking out. They simply wanted us to be informed about the reality of the occupation—which has so changed the landscape of the Occupied Territories: the territorial area which, according to the 1993 Oslo accords, would be the future state of Palestine. In 1993 there were 110,000 settlers in the Occupied Territories. There are now 400,000 settlers—and more than 500,000 if we include Jerusalem.
Desperate times make people take desperate actions. In the past the desperate actions were violent, and we were right to urge the Palestinians to forgo violence for diplomatic means. Yet when they did, we continually rebuffed them for it. When Palestinians see all around them the reality of a two-state solution diminishing, if not already over, they start to fight for the Palestine that they want to exist, even if it exists simply on paper, out there in the abstract. That is the desperation that we see among the Palestinians. When we visit the Occupied Territories—with communities that are being choked, livelihoods that are being lost and basic needs that are not being met—it is not hard to understand the feeling of hopelessness.
I know that many noble Lords whom I consider to be friends will stand up today and argue that no Palestinian state must ever come about without Israel’s agreement. I accept that as their sincerely held view. So the question I ask my colleagues who will make that argument today is: what are you doing, as the two sides continue to flog the dead horse of negotiations, to preserve the physical integrity of a future negotiated state of Palestine? Do you campaign against the illegal settlements? Do you condemn those, even in our own parties—extremists, as my right honourable friend Alan Duncan so ably argued—who do not condemn illegal settlements? And how do those of you who have the privilege of a close relationship with the Israeli Government use it to encourage the Israeli Government to respect international law?
Our abstentions display a terrible lack of moral character. Our continued lack of support at the UN puts us at odds with our own—oft cited, these days—British values of the rule of law, justice and fairness. Our Government’s decision to ignore parliamentary and public opinion makes our Government complicit and responsible for the ever closing window on the prospect of a two-state solution becoming a physical reality. The desperate attempt by the Palestinians to get a state on paper, even if not in reality, is something that we have an obligation at least to recognise.
5.02 pm
Lord Mendelsohn (Lab): My Lords, I hope that I am not making too much of an assumption if I say that most of the speakers in the debate support a
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two-state solution, and do not support settlements. The Palestinians deserve support, and one needs to listen to the many campaigns they promote to put political pressure on Israel, to try to erase its historical context and to challenge its supporters in any and every way as a form of resistance. That is legitimate, and it is the voice of a predicament, and indeed suffering, which are yet to be met with justice. But that does not mean that it makes good foreign policy to support it or to adopt it. Nor does it show indifference to oppose it.
