Middle East (Situation)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 31 October 1956.

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Photo of Mr Harold Lever Mr Harold Lever , Manchester Cheetham 12:00, 31 October 1956

No—reservation. I know that all great Powers are trustworthy only to the point of harmony of interest, and I hope that harmony of interest, which I believe to be a long-term one, will continue.

I will also tell my hon. Friends this brutal fact. I share with them what I think is a general view, that Israel's future can be a sound one only if she comes to terms of peaceful, constructive co-existence with her Arab neighbours ; but there are circumstances where that is possible only on the same basis as co-existence with the criminal lunatic, as in the example referred to in the Dr. Johnson aphorism, when one has got to knock the man down first and sympathise with him afterwards.

This may sound a somewhat cruel and brutal doctrine ; it may sound silly to one or two of my hon. Friends, but they happen to live in a country which hopes to have peaceful co-existence with Germany, and let them not forget that those hopes are based on the fact that we beat the daylights out of Germany in two great wars in this century, and until that had been done, I assure them, no satisfactory co-existence with the Hitler Government would have been possible.

To be quite frank, it is perfectly plain to anyone not obsessed with unreal doctrinaire ideas that no peaceful coexistence is possible between the Nasser Government and the Israeli Government. Colonel Nasser would be hanged, drawn and quartered by his own supporters if he showed the first glimmer of intention to live peacefully and constructively with the Israeli people.