Everybody says that, but then there are lots of people.

According to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israeli settlers in the west bank consume approximately six times the water used by Palestinians. There has been a threefold increase in the number of settler housing units in 2012 compared with 2011. The settler population was estimated at more than 520,000 last year. When I first visited Palestine in 2002 the population was 50,000, so there has been a tenfold increase. The UN also estimates that there are around 540 internal checkpoints, roadblocks and other physical obstacles that impede Palestinian movement in the west bank. The demolition of Palestinian structures is on the rise, displacing more than 1,000 people in 2011. The Palestinian economy is also severely constrained by Israeli restrictions on access to markets and natural resources. The annual cost of this has been estimated at €5.2 billion, or 85% of total Palestinian GDP, which has led to the Palestinian Authority being dependent on large amounts of funds from the EU and other foreign donors. Between 1994 and 2011, the EU gave €5 billion to Palestine. However, the impact of Israel’s paralysing constraints on Palestinian access to markets and resources is too great to be covered by aid alone. The PA currently faces an acute budget crisis.

The real tragedy of this tit-for-tat conflict is the human collateral. The continued loss of lives on both sides is truly appalling. I am concerned that inertia has set in and that the international community has become an observer of a tragedy that is regularly broadcast across the world, with hope of finding a viable resolution lost. Last month Israel launched a major offensive on Gaza —Operation Pillar of Defence, so-called—killing the military commander of Hamas in an air strike. After continuous bombardment, a ceasefire was negotiated between the two sides. The UN confirmed that 158 Palestinians and six Israelis were killed. The fatalities included a pregnant woman carrying twins, an 11-month-old boy and two infants. The reality of these statistics on the ground is truly appalling. The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported:

“On 4 November, Israeli forces stationed in an observatory tower shot and killed a 23 year-old mentally-challenged Palestinian…It was not until two hours later, following coordination with the Israeli military, that a Palestinian ambulance was permitted to reach the area”.

The fact remains that this is an uneven conflict. Some 1,377 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza war from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009, while 13 Israelis died in the same period. More recently, statistics from the OCHA for casualties and fatalities prior to 6 November show that 71 Palestinians were killed by Israel in the Gaza strip in 2012, with 291 injured. In the same period, 19 Israelis were injured by Palestinian fire from Gaza and none were killed.

I call on the Minister to press the European Union and the Israelis to secure an end to the siege of Gaza. Even our Prime Minister once described Gaza as a prison, so it is incumbent on our Government to demand the freedom of the prisoners who are being subjected to collective punishment because of the sins of a minority. When I questioned the Foreign Secretary on a statement last month, he refused to comment on what he regarded as proportionate. I can only take from that the embarrassment that he might feel if he tried to explain away Israel’s grossly disproportionate response to terrorist rockets fired from Gaza.

I should like briefly to talk about the Quartet’s road map for peace, which was first announced in 2002. My first visit to Israel and Palestine was in 2002, when the road map was a source of hope for peace. At that time there were 50,000 settlers in the Palestine territories; there are now more than 500,000, and peace seems much further away. Ten foreign ministers of the European Union’s Mediterranean states—Bulgaria, Cyprus, Spain, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Romania and Slovenia—sent an open letter to the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in 2007, in which they stated unequivocally and without any diplomatic nuance that they believed the road map had failed. The letter stated:

“We might as well admit it straight away”.

It went on to say that this was

“the recognition of a shared failure we can no longer ignore: the ‘road map’ has failed.”

It is clear that there is no credible plan on the table to achieve a two-state solution or peace, and I believe that the UK has a responsibility to work with our European partners to create a credible plan and to use all the instruments at our disposal to bring pressure to bear on Israel. The settlements are illegal under international law, specifically article 49 of the fourth Geneva convention and United Nations Security Council resolutions 242 and 338. The United Nations, the International Court of Justice and the overwhelming Majority of states share this view. Israel controls the borders, airspace and coastline and has overwhelming control of life in the area.

The establishment of settlements has created a discriminatory two-tier system in the west bank, with settlers enjoying the rights and benefits of Israeli citizenship while the Palestinians are subjected to Israeli military law. This year, I had an opportunity to visit a prison in the west bank, where I observed children as young as 14 being tried by a military court for throwing stones at an Israeli defence force vehicle. One of the children received a two-year prison sentence from military officers who should not have been in a court in Palestine; indeed, that court should not have been on Palestinian land in the west bank.

In a recent report, the former EU Commissioner for External Relations, Hans van den Broek, gives evidence of how EU member states have helped to sustain the Israeli settlements. He stated:

“As settlement construction has continued and accelerated, however, we Europeans have failed to move from words to action. So far we have refrained from deploying our considerable political and economic leverage”.

Will the Minister tell us what the UK Government are doing to apply pressure on Israel to cease settlement building, either bilaterally or multilaterally through the European Union? The Foreign Secretary has made it plain that it is impossible for an EU of 27 countries unanimously to agree to economic sanctions against Israel, but he has yet to say whether he would be in favour of sanctions against Israel in principle if agreement on sanctions could be found across the EU at some stage in the future. I invite the Minister to comment on that point.

The most recent estimate of the value of EU imports from the settlements, provided by the Israeli Government to the World Bank, is €230 million a year. That is approximately 15 times the annual value of EU imports from Palestinians. With more than 4 million Palestinians and over 500,000 Israeli settlers living in the occupied territory, that means that the EU imports over 100 times more per settler than per Palestinian. The most common settlement products sold in Europe are agricultural products such as dates, citrus fruits and herbs, and manufactured products including cosmetics, carbonation devices, plastics, textile products and toys. Despite its firm position that the settlements are not part of Israel, Europe has been accepting imports of those settlements’ products with the origin designated as Israel. I believe that the UK Government should lobby the EU member states to adopt our own policy of consumer labelling for all settlement products and also for manufactured goods. Beyond the trade in settlement goods, some European-owned companies have invested in settlements and related infrastructure or are providing services to them. Examples that have been reported include G4S.

Adding to the contradictions at the heart of the EU’s policy towards Israel’s illegal settlements, the EU has failed fully to exclude settlements from the benefits of its co-operation programmes and bilateral agreements with Israel. In several cases, EU public funds for research and development have been used directly to support activities in settlements. The newly ratified EU-Israel agreement on conformity assessment and acceptance of industrial products is an example of the EU’s failure to insist on a firm distinction between Israel and the illegal settlements. The Government need to raise this with the European Commission. At the heart of the UK’s policy towards Israel is the contradiction between recognising that the settlements are illegal, running counter to achieving a two-state solution, and our continuing to trade with the region through the EU. I would be grateful if the Minister could share with the House any updates on recent developments in the political situation in Israel and Palestine.

I also want to press the Minister to assure me that his Department will consider the following proposals for action against inertia: the suspension of appropriate strategic dialogue meetings with Israel to show that the UK is prepared to act in Opposition to Israel’s settlement policy; the use of Government advice to discourage businesses from purchasing settlement goods and from all other commercial and investment links with settlements; a ban on the imports of settlement products, as called for by Ireland; the championing of the exclusion of all settlement products in the EU and European Free Trade Association from preferential market access by insisting that Israel starts designating the origin of settlement products other than by “Israel”; the exclusion of settlements from bilateral agreements and co-operation instruments with Israel by means of explicit legal provisions and safeguards; the removal of organisations’ funding settlements from tax deduction systems, as happens in Norway; the prevention of financial transactions to settlements and related activities by means of applying restrictive measures as a more comprehensive approach; the issuing of guidelines for European tour operators to prevent support for settlement businesses; and no longer selling UK-supplied components that can be used in the conflict.

As I have said, there is tragic complacency in the international community and the UK about the latest developments in the Palestine-Israel conflict and an observable lack of commitment from the key players towards securing a two-state solution. I believe that the UK has an important role to play and we should not underestimate our influence, particularly in Europe, in leveraging more political and, more important, economic pressure on Israel. That will require moral and political leadership and action, but we should not shy away from that and I urge the Minister to use his office to promote peace in the region by pushing for a two-state solution.