Gaza — Motion to Take Note

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 2:45 pm on 6 February 2009.

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Photo of Lord Alderdice Lord Alderdice Liberal Democrat 2:45, 6 February 2009

My Lords, this has been a sombre debate but also one with a lot of passion and distress. I have listened to Peers describe the situation as they see it and it is difficult not to be moved. The eloquent, detailed and emotional descriptions by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, my noble friends Lady Tonge and Lady Northover, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, the clear description from the noble Lords, Lord Janner, Lord Pannick and Lord Kalms, and others of the fears of Israeli people about what might become of them, show that as we speak here in your Lordships' House, part of our responsibility is to express the deep fears, anxieties, anger—even hatred, sometimes—of those with whom we most closely identify. But we must try to go a little further than that, because if we simply express these things, although we will be doing something very important we will not persuade those who come from another perspective. They will simply feel justified in where they stand.

When I was a little boy, I sometimes did not behave towards my sister quite as well I should have. My mother would sometimes reprove me for these misdemeanours, and I would then proceed to describe how my sister had wronged me first. My mother would say, "John, John, two wrongs never made a right". We have heard described a whole series of terrible wrongs—historic, current, deep and distressing. Tragically, some of the things that have been done and experienced are not just wrongs for the here and now. There are young Palestinians—children, teenagers and those who are a little bit older—who are now damaged for good, physically and emotionally. Many young men and women in the Israel Defence Force are now damaged because of their experiences. Last time I was in Israel, one of the mothers of a young man in the Israel Defence Force said that she desperately hoped that her son did not kill a Palestinian. She knew, as a mother, what it would do to him in his capacity to relate to his own partner and children and so on.

These are grim and serious matters for all of us. As we try to move our way forward, I fear, as the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and my noble friend Lady Northover said, that this is not just another episode. I think this is a watershed. It is a very dark hour, and it could be a dark hour before an even worse storm. Nothing guarantees that there will not be a more serious conflagration in the wider Middle East. The problems of Israel and the Palestinians are not simply for them; in terms of how we deal with them and what they might lead to, the problem goes much wider.

However, sometimes the darkest hour can be before the dawn. Like the noble Lord, Lord Bew, I was heartened by the appointment of George Mitchell, with whom I have more than a passing acquaintance. He has extraordinary patience, as the noble Lord said, and he has been appointed by a president who is remarkable at this stage of his presidency in the hope and optimism that he has inspired and in the capacity to think when much presses us to act as we feel.

As the noble Lord, Lord Bew, said, there are differences despite similarities and similarities despite differences in the experience of George Mitchell in Northern Ireland and other places, including the Middle East and the job he now has. When he came to Northern Ireland there was already an infrastructure; he was asked to chair a process that was in place. There is no process in the Middle East at present. There is no table and no agreement about who should be at the table. I am familiar with that. And I am very familiar with the ideas that some people might not be at the table, that others might walk away and that we might have to have a process to take us to the point where undertakings are given that will enabling us to have a wider conversation.

Some four or more years ago I started to talk to people in Hamas and Hezbollah as well as people in Israel, Jordan, Syria and Egypt. The most difficult thing in my experience was talking to people whom I believed were interested only in the destruction of some of the things that were important to me. I found that in places such as Beirut and Damascus it was exactly the same as at home in Belfast. When you asked people involved in violence, "Is there another way in which we could explore our differences?", the answer was, "Of course". If there is another way let us explore it because none of us wants this for our children. When we say that these people do not care about children, families and so on, it is not true. They care as much as we do, so we must think about what they are going through when they happily—I question that attitude—send out their children or grandchildren to face the possibility, probability or almost certainty of their death. What does that say about the context in which one views the issue?

Our common European home knew much violence and many deaths over many centuries and we have found ways of moving forward. We have become a bit inward-looking and perhaps we have not played the role that we might in some of these ways. As I listened to the noble Lord, I understood clearly the criticisms that were being made and how many times noble Lords have said that this country—this group of people—must do this or that. It is nearly always that somebody else must do something or other. We need to look to ourselves in our own country, and common European home, and ask, "What can we do? Are there things that we can take up?". The first thing is to take up our own experience, which is that there is no solution to these problems by the use of force by either side.

I was working with Martin McGuinness and Iraqis in Baghdad recently when he said, "We came to the same conclusion as the Brits. They couldn't beat us, and we couldn't beat them. We could keep on sending our young people out to be killed for the next 10 or 15 years, and it wouldn't solve anything. There had to be another way of dealing with the problem".

We found it. We need to start listening, as well as talking to people with whom we disagree. Talking to your friends does not solve the problem but talking to the people with whom you disagree leads to a solution. There are contexts in which it is possible to do that, but usually the context has to be wider rather than narrower. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, referred to the network of the OSCE, the Council of Europe, and so on. There is an idea that a wider body within the Middle East, which includes Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Iraq, as well as Israel and the Palestinians in some kind of variable geometry, has to be involved in this.

I noted that the noble Lord, Lord Malloch-Brown, with his extraordinary knowledge of all of these things, the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, with his characteristic eloquence, and my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire, with his sagacity, all talked about Palestinians coming together and Palestinian unity. What does that mean? It involves Hamas and Fatah and some of the others. But they were together in a national unity Government and Her Majesty's Government indicated privately that they were supportive of that, which made possible an engagement. But when it was elected, that was not what happened. Therefore, when I hear noble Lords on the Government and Opposition Benches speaking about the importance of Palestinians coming together, are we saying on the record and clearly that if they do we will engage in a constructive way? Will we deepen and widen the discussions and make possible the context for talks? I refer to the kind of place where someone such as George Mitchell, with the backing of the new President of the United States can actually take things forward in the way that all of us desperately want to see.

If that happened, the people of Israel could feel secure and at home in their own place and their Palestinian brothers and sisters could feel justifiably safe and secure in their own place. If it did, all of us would have a better chance of feeling safe and secure in our common home.