Foreign Affairs

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 25 March 1975.

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Photo of Mr Greville Janner Mr Greville Janner , Leicester West 12:00, 25 March 1975

The hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Blaker) has made an important and interesting case on which some of us would agree with him provided the common foreign policy was one which appealed to us. The trouble is that a common foreign policy may mean the foreign policy of France, for example, with which few of us would agree on many issues. We have to consider very carefully how such a common foreign policy would evolve.

I would dearly love to roam the world in this debate and talk perhaps of the survival difficulties of India or the economic problems of Chile, or of Gibraltar, Turkey or Cyprus. I hope the House will forgive me if I restrict myself to areas with which I am deeply concerned and of which I have some special knowledge. I refer, in particular, to the Middle East and to relations with the Soviet Union.

The hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. Walters) made a characteristic speech putting forward what is quite clearly the Arab case. Towards the end, in a revealing phrase, he said that Europe has most to lose from the outbreak of another war in the Middle East. In my submission, the people who have most to lose are those countries in the Middle East which will lose their sons and fathers whatever the outcome of the war. Certainly, so far as Israel is concerned there are not enough sons and fathers, and the tragedy of the October war was not the difference in the size of the forces but the dreadful aura of tragedy which hung over that tiny country with so many of its young people killed and maimed.

When we discus the Middle East we talk of it objectively because we are not that close, but sitting in a kibbutz near the Golan Heights one has a different view of where the guns used to be. Discussing the Golan Heights there, one does it from a different and much more dangerous angle. The hon. Member spoke of withdrawal leading to peace; but the question the Israelis ask is: "Would it lead to peace or would it lead to another war, with the other side starting from so much nearer to our homes, where our wives and children live?" It is a fair question, and if any of us lived there we would necessarily ask it. It is not enough to say that there is a body of opinion which is prepared, after Israel moves back, to recognise its existence.

Any Israeli Government would have to have far more than that if Israel is to move back from a position of reasonable military security, which is all it has, and any Israeli Government would have to convince their own people that they were behaving sensibly or they would be thrown out. Some of us sometimes forget that Israel is a democracy like our own, with a Government who depend upon the consent of the people. It is a Government who can fall in an election or can resign. It is a Government who, one hopes, will survive the kind of tragedy that overtook King Faisal today. It is a Government who do not depend upon one person. It is not a feudal kingdom.

I sometimes wonder why so many of my hon. Friends, as Socialists, are so attached to such feudal kingdoms and why they do not appreciate the democracy which is the only one in the area, a democracy which will survive if its people are prepared, as undoubtedly they are, to fight for that survival. The question Dr. Kissinger had to face was: would he be able to convince the Israelis, on their side, that to withdraw from the passes and oilfields would lead to a firm recognition that there would not be, almost immediately, another war with hostilities starting so much nearer home?

The Israelis were not prepared to give such assurances, so, alas, another opportunity for peace has gone. On the other hand, there are Israelis who feel that it is better not to have a withdrawal in return for nothing, or for a piece of paper, than it would have been to have withdrawn and got their guarantee with no guarantee that it would have survived, because who knows whether another disaster may overtake President Sadat as it has overtaken King Faisal? It is a very volatile area, and régimes in all countries there other than Israel depend upon the survival of one person. We cannot provide the firm guarantees, nor can America.

The hon. Member for Westbury said that the United Nations emergency force provided a guarantee in 1967, but as soon as there was trouble that force was asked to move out. It is important that we should have a United Nations buffer and that the leases of UN forces should be renewed, because those forces provide at least some kind of deterrent against any attempt to move in. But we must recognise that the force is not very great and would move away at the request of either party at any time.

It does not help to oversimplify the refugee problem, to ignore the fact that times have moved forward since 1947, whether hon. Members like it or not, and that Israel has in the meantime absorbed hundreds of thousands of refugees from Arab countries, countries with vast resources which have declined to absorb them into their own countries, for obvious reasons.

It does not help to oversimplify the PLO problem. Terrorism is only the beginning. It is not just a distaste of people for negotiating with terrorists, which one can overcome. It is a question of finding something to talk about with them.

There were references to terrorists from Cyprus and Kenya, who were fighting for their area of territory from which they wanted to get us out. If hon. Members are saying that the Arab terrorists are fighting to get the Israelis out of Israel we know where we stand. No Israeli Government could conceivably negotiate with them on that basis.

Again, terrorism in its dreadful history, has generally confined itself to attacks on armed forces in the country concerned, with the incidental miserable deaths of civilians in the process, deaths regretted by all. The terrorism of the PLO is nothing of the kind. It is terrorism deli- berately directed at women and children, at civilians, and not only in Israel but outside Israel, and at not only Israelis but others—because many of those who have suffered have not been Israelis or even Jews.