Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, the failure to resolve the Gaza crisis by the road map of the quartet bars the road to peace and makes the map irrelevant. More and more voices counsel direct contact between the quartet, Israel and Hamas, for it has been said that this, more than any other, crisis in the Middle East is not resolvable by military means alone. Be that as it may, I submit that psychological warfare is...
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, the predominant aim for a British foreign policy that can cope with political challenges, acute or simmering, and steer us through the floods of a global economic crisis in which there will probably be few Noah's Arks, must be a reinvigoration of our European policy and its harmonisation with renewed transatlantic ties. If your Lordships were to join me in looking further into the...
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, the key words "culture of respect" in the gracious Speech should extend to and straddle the whole field of international relations, reaching into every regional and thematic aspect of this debate. Turning to the Middle East, Britain's role both as a European power and a staunch ally of the United States must be one that seeks to narrow the transatlantic gap of still continuing...
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, having only recently retired after nine years of chairing the board of governors of the Ben-Gurion University of Beer Sheva, I can bear witness to the friendly and effective co-operation between Israeli, Arab and, particularly, Bedouin students. Nowhere is political debate more open, and self-criticism, often in the form of revisionist history, more lively than in Israel's...
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, first, I congratulate the two maiden speakers on their contributions. They were thoughtful and stimulating, but in particular constructive and concrete. I want to deal with one aspect of the debate centring on the alleged elitism at Oxford; that is, its damaging impact on foreign opinion. Even allowing for the fact that some ministerial utterances might have been made in the heat of...
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, the domestic political crisis in Israel, against the background of an escalating second intifada, might prove a complicating factor, but it might also reopen a narrow window of opportunity for a resumption of peace talks. The paradox of the situation is that Ehud Barak has gone further than any previous leader, and further than any future prime minister of Israel on the horizon, in...
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, the reference to human rights in the gracious Speech and the increasingly urgent call for Europe and Britain to play a more active part in the current Middle East crisis prompt me to draw attention to what I believe is a grave issue and one on which Her Majesty's Government might form a serious view and even consider initiating action. It is the issue of certain Middle Eastern...
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, the Prime Minister has lent an overtone of hope and lofty aspiration to the mood of grim determination to fight and win an existential struggle. The need for a wide-ranging coalition in the first phase of what President Bush warned may be a five or even a 10-year war, is unarguable; indeed it is essential. But realpolitik must not too crassly turn into surrealpolitik. Some of...
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, for not only allowing us to discuss this important subject but also for having come forward with ground breaking suggestions for action both nationally and internationally. The other day I was gratified to learn that the prestigious World Economic Forum in Davos will to a large extent devote its next session in...
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, this is one of the most important debates I have attended in more than 25 years in your Lordships' House. We are truly at a crossroad of history. I know that comparisons with Munich and the age of dictators, or the Suez crisis, and the idea that history repeats itself, may be open to argument, but it is interesting to observe here and elsewhere in Europe how postures in the face of...
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, in this, the first week of the countdown on Iraq, I was forcefully struck by two different messages. In an Al'Qaeda videotape, a voice, credibly that of bin Laden, threatened us with terrible vengeance if we used force against Saddam's Iraq. In a letter to the editor of The Times, an ordinary Iraqi living in London quoted President Bush's vow—echoed by the Prime Minister—that...
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, for someone who grew up in central Europe in the age of the dictators and who lived through the Second World War in this country, the idea of overthrowing a tyrannical regime through a coalition of the willing, even by pre-emptive action, would have fulfilled a deep-felt yearning and no sacrifice would have been shirked. The issues we are debating today, relevant and, indeed, grave...
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, for an opportunity for plain talk—plain talk about the Middle East. The catastrophe of these events on the Israeli-Palestinian front no longer brooks evasion and half truths. Cobwebs of cliches and stereotypes must be removed. After listening to the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, I submit, more convinced than ever, that the...
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, on his maiden speech. I have known and admired the noble Lord for many years for his contribution to national politics and the arts, and to inter-allied bridge-building and international co-operation, while displaying the self-ironising yet authoritative manner that he showed today. The noble Lord, Lord Wright, would...
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, perhaps I may turn to the Middle East. The imminent visit of Prime Minister Barak of Israel to this country may shed new light on the next and so decisive stage of the Arab/Israel peace process. The Israeli Premier has been speaking confidently about prospects and he has been speaking civilly, even flatteringly, about his actual Palestinian and hoped for Syrian interlocutors. But...
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, three daunting challenges, inseparably linked, face our country and must be treated conjointly: first, the economic crisis; secondly, the inevitable political and social fall-out following austere fiscal and economic policies; and, thirdly, the existential threat that the whole of the free world still faces from rogue states and from worldwide interstate terrorism. I cannot, I am...
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, I am afraid that the two-minute speaking limit prevents me arguing certain basic facts with the noble Baroness, having myself been involved for over 60 years with Israel. There are many facts concerning even its creation which I should very much like an opportunity to discuss here at greater length. I think that the Arab spring is a mixed blessing. On the one hand it has given fresh...
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, I have been involved in the cause of a Jewish state in the Holy Land for nearly 80 years. I was privileged to have served the first President of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, as adviser and head of his office and claim a continuous involvement with the theme of this debate. I am aware how, from the very outset, Israel's leaders upheld the founders' pledge to treat the Arab minority as...
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, just as Syrian territory has become a mosaic of every brand of political and religious extremism and operational terrain for barbarous practices, neither the USA nor Europe is in the mood to intervene decisively on the ground or in the air—shades of Iraq and Afghanistan. So in parentheses, the tragedy of at least one of the Iraq campaigns lies not so much in its moral deficit but...
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, Europe is confronted by three worsening, interpenetrating crises in the Middle East, demanding a new measure of watchfulness, partly because of the somewhat undulating nature of President Obama’s foreign policy of withdrawal and return. The descent of established, although perhaps malgoverned, countries into dysfunctional and even failed states is epitomised by the Syrian tragedy,...