§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Garel-Jones.]
§ 10.5 pm
§ Mr. Dennis Walters (Westbury)I consider that this is an opportune time to be debating a peace initiative in the middle east. It is also timely, because we have as an honoured guest in this country President Mubarak of Egypt, who, I believe, would agree with the proposition that a major effort to achieve a comprehensive settlement in the middle east should take place as soon as possible.
I have long advocated the convening of an international conference with the participation of the Soviet Union, but if that is not possible because of a point blank American refusal to consider it we should examine what other courses are open. A number of unusually favourable circumstances have combined to give a peace initiative launched now a slightly better chance of success than at any time since 1973 when the United States refused to seize the opportunity offered by the October war.
President Reagan has been returned for a second term, having won a massive electoral victory. During the campaign, he made fewer damaging promises to the Zionist lobby than is usual on such occasions—many fewer than his heavily defeated Democratic opponent whose electoral bribes to the Zionists were unedifying and apparently inexhaustible. The mid-term elections are some way off.
The Israeli economy is in an appalling mess which should make its Government more responsive than usual to American persuasion if firmly enough applied, and in Shimon Peres Israel has a Prime Minister who might even be inclined to respond positively. Also, withdrawal of the Israeli armed forces from Lebanon has acquired an aspect similar to a rout, although defeat has in no way blunted the brutality of the punitive attacks that they launch indiscriminately against both the Lebanese Shia fighters and the ordinary villagers of south Lebanon.
That the Security Council resolution should have been vetoed by the United States was not altogether surprising, but I find it surprising that Her Majesty's Government abstained. I shall be interested to hear the reason for that when my hon. Friend the Minister replies. It is ironic to recall, as the invading army pulls back towards the national frontier, that at no time were Israel's settlements in northern Galilee safer and more peaceable than during the 18 months truce with the Palestinians which preceded Israel's bloody and unprovoked invasion.
In any event, one way or another it is not unreasonable to assume that the Israeli armed forces will be out of Lebanon before long.
Lastly, the accord reached between Mr. Arafat and King Hussein marked a substantial step towards meeting American requirements. The agreement refers specifically to a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation, to the principle of land for peace and to the idea of a Jordan-Palestine confederation. Although the agreement has come under attack from certain elements in the PLO, and under sharp attack from Syria, Arafat has confirmed that, in principle, the agreement stands.
Statesmanship and expediency call for a major initiative. It would, therefore, be sad indeed if the reports 533 indicating a negative response, first to King Fahd and now to President Mubarak urging United States diplomatic intervention, were true.
Perhaps we all tend to go astray in believing that Washington can be influenced over its conduct in the Middle East by the means that friendly powers usually use when trying to change or modify one another's foreign policy. Persuasion and advice assume that the Government concerned have a foreign policy and are in effective control of it.
In regard to the Middle East, it is by no means certain that the United States Administration have a planned strategy of foreign policy. Perhaps we should start by recognising the possibility that they simply have a domestic policy of subservience to Israel, imposed by a powerful lobby, with an external policy in the Middle East which is basically no more than a reflection of that.
Should that be so, the only hope would lie in the gradual enlightenment of American opinion at the grass roots. But the dangers of delay are such that we cannot countenance such a possibility. We must continue to act on the presumption that Washington has a policy for the Middle East which is not entirely submissive to Israel, which is not blind to Western interests or to the pressures of international law and morality and is a policy which we can and should try to influence for the sake of peace and our mutual advantage.
The consequences of failing to act swiftly are alarming, and the fact that in the past warnings of impending danger have not materialised should not lull us into a foolish state of complacency. Iran looked fairly safe a year before the deluge, and Islamic fundamentalism feeds on the present unsatisfactory status quo. The Minister might care to refer to that and to the war with Iraq.
King Hussein has made his feelings well known, but there is still far too little awareness of the near despair felt by moderate Arab regimes at Western inertia and apparent unreasoning refusal to influence events while it is still possible to do so.
Since 1967, there have been a number of Middle East peace initiatives. Some appeared to have a greater chance of success than others, but all foundered in the face of Israeli intransigence. Each had its merits, although by adding one sentence on the right of Palestinian self-determination, it is difficult to improve on resolution 242, which calls for the withdrawal of Israel from territories occupied in the war of June 1967.
There has been much argument, most of it fatuous, about the significance of the omission of the word "the" before the words "territories occupied" in the English text of that resolution. The omission of "the" may mean something, and that something may be arguable, but it cannot have been intended to turn the entire resolution on its head and acknowledge any right for Israel to take permanent possession of the West Bank and Gaza or any large part of it. Most informed observers would agree that the American Secretary of State, William Rogers, got it about right in 1969, when he said:
We believe that while recognised boundaries must be established, and agreed upon by the parties, any changes in the pre-existing lines should not reflect the weight of conquest and should be confined to insubstantial alterations required for mutual security. We do not support expansionism. We believe troops must be withdrawn as the Resolution provides.The question 18 years after 1967 is: where do we go from here? The Israelis will not budge unless the Americans compel them to do so, and the Americans are 534 reluctant to exercise serious pressure because of internal domestic considerations. Is there any way out of the impasse? I believe that Europe has a role to play. The Venice declaration amplified the terms of resolution 242 and set out the essential pre-conditions for a settlement: Israel's right to security, Palestinian right to self-determination, and the association of the PLO in the negotiations. This last point has been made much easier by the Hussein-Arafat accord. A restatement and updating of the Venice declaration might be an appropriate first step. Then it is worth considering a joint Euro-Arab approach to the United States. A top-level delegation consisting of the leading European and moderate Arab leaders could visit Washington together to urge on President Reagan the need to act now to bring peace to the middle east.No doubt such a proposal sounds unrealistic and far fetched, but all imaginative initiatives appear unrealistic and even theatrical before they have taken place. A good example was President Sadat's visit to Jerusalem, which certainly broke the log jam. There is, of course, the problem of what they would say and recommend to President Reagan. It would be unrealistic to hope that they could agree on a joint Euro-Arab peace plan put to him. That would lead only to a futile argument about the merits of the different peace plans now on the table, including President Reagan's initiative at Camp David. It would be better to stick to broad issues such as the need for a new American initiative, the urgency of such action now, the need to revert to resolution 242 as the only solid and widely accepted basis on which to build a settlement. and the special obligation resting on the United States Administration to ensure that Israel complies with the resolution. Of course, there would have to be an agreed reference to Palestinian rights, which the Venice declaration already encompasses.
To remove the danger of war in the Middle East should be the top priority of Western foreign policy. Peace is in the interests of everyone—the West, the Arab countries, the Palestinians, who have suffered so much injustice, and not least of Israel. For there to be peace, Israel must concede that the Palestinians are entitled by historical, legal and moral rights to at least a measure of justice. At a minimum, that justice must be granted in the form of a homeland for the Palestinians on the West Bank and in Gaza. It should be noted that, under this formula and at the end of the negotiating process, the Palestinians would be recognising Israel at the price of the return to them of less than 30 per cent. of the land that was once theirs.
Israel would have to sacrifice some territory for peace, but in this day and age security cannot be achieved by a few more miles of territory. Surely Ben Gurion was right when, in old age, he said:
As for security, military defensible borders, while desirable, cannot by themselves guarantee our future. Real peace with our Arab neighbours—mutual trust and friendship — that is the only true security.Real peace with our Arab neighbours"—that is precisely what the Israelis are denying themselves by insisting on hanging on to land that does not belong to them—land inadmissibly acquired by war. Before it is too late, we must act to try to bring about the peace that has eluded us all for too long.
§ Mr. Robert Adley (Christchurch)In the few minutes that I have available, I begin by congratulating my hon.
535 Friend the Member for Westbury (Mr. Walters) on raising a matter that is of the utmost importance to all of us. This afternoon, my wife was talking to a friend about my intention to participate in this debate, and my wife's friend said, "In the Lebanon the Israelis are getting away with murder." That seems a good cue with which to start my remarks.
There are three countries in the world that are currently in contravention of United Nations resolutions for invading and occupying neighbouring nations' territories. There is the Soviet Union in Afghanistan; Vietnam in Kampuchea; and Israel in four countries—Jordan, Syria, the Lebanon and Egypt. Israel's idea of peace is to subjugate its neighbours, and destroy all trace of the Palestinian people.
The Arabs in the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan and the Lebanon are in the same position as the French resistance fighters were in world war two. They are fighting for the freedom of their own occupied territories, but the Israelis, through their propaganda machine, insist on calling all Palestinians terrorists. There will never be peace until this attitude changes.
My hon. Friend mentioned the position of the United States. I therefore ask my hon. Friend the Minister to consider two points that Her Majesty's Government, with our European partners, could countenance. At the moment, Israel enjoys access, on favourable terms, to EEC markets. All these concessions should be withdrawn until Israel withdraws from all the occupied territories in the middle east. Secondly, the British Government quite rightly discontinued the sale of arms to Israel while that country's troops were in the Lebanon. I understand that if Israel gets out of the Lebanon quickly Her Majesty's Government may reconsider and may start again the sale of arms to Israel, notwithstanding the fact that the Israeli Government will still be in possession of territories that do not belong to them internationally in the three other countries that I have already mentioned. Those two requests seem to be fairly modest.
The paranoia that the name Arafat brings into any conversation that one has with Israelis is, to those of us who know Mr. Arafat, incredible. At the moment, as my hon. Friend has said, there is the best chance of peace for years, but all that the Israelis are doing, by their paranoia, is throwing away the chance to give themselves the security that they need, which we understand that they need and to which they are entitled.
My hon. Friend mentioned the fuelling of the flames of Muslim fundamentalism. The repercussions of this go far beyond the middle east, and no one can possibly foresee where what is happening in southern Lebanon today may take us, through the activities of the Israeli forces as they carry out their policies in that sad and unfortunate country.
Of course Israel wants to live in peace behind secure borders. That is the policy of the British Government, which all hon. Members support. However, to try to obtain those objectives by the tactics of Sabra and Chatilla is never likely to win Israel friends, victory or any sort of peace and security.
The British Government must show the Israeli Government that their behaviour does not justify their inclusion among the nations whom we regard as being entitled to be treated as one of this country's favoured friends.
§ Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory (Wells)I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Mr. Walters) for permitting me to contribute to his debate.
There are no simple solutions to the middle east, but some actions make matters worse rather than better. I should like to mention the construction of Israeli settlements on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israel does not have sovereignty over that territory, and does not claim it. They are occupied territories, and have been for more than 17 years. Every peace plan refers to the need at least to freeze the number of settlements in those areas. The Venice declaration, to which Britain is a party, declared those settlements illegal. The United Nations gas criticised them, and the Reagan plan of 1982 declared that they were not necessary for security and were an obstacle to peace.
What has happened? Since then, the number of Jewish settlers on the West Bank has more than doubled. As net immigration to Israel has now almost halted, the West Bank is being occupied not by an influx of immigrants but by a transfer of population from Israel. The present coalition Government in Israel has recently agreed to set up six more settlements by the autumn. That cannot bring peace any closer. It is grossly provocative to moderate Arab opinion and ensures that it is outbid by the men of violence.
Meanwhile, the House arrests and deportations go on. We have just learnt that Bir Zeit university at Ramallah has been closed by the Israeli authorities for two months. It is the eighth time that that has happened since 1979. Will my hon. Friend the Minister state clearly his views about the settlements on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and may I, through you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, ask the Israeli Government not to compound the problem by continuing to defy their friends and enemies alike?
§ The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Richard Luce)I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Mr. Walters) on initiating this debate. He has had a great knowledge of and an interest in the middle east for a long time, and the House always listens to him carefully. I am also grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch (Mr. Adley) and for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) for their contributions to the debate. I assure them that I shall take what they have said carefully into account.
The Arab-Israeli dispute has lasted for almost 40 years. Like a cancer, it has eaten into the wellbeing of the inhabitants of the entire region, spilling over into countries initially quite detached from the dispute between Israel and the Arabs. It has had dramatic effects on regional stability and on the world's economy. As the problems have festered, extremism has grown on all sides and will continue to do so if there is not a firm and perceptible move towards a settlement.
Britain's interest is in seeing this conflict brought to an end as soon as possible. Two principles underpin our approach. First, we believe that Israel has a right to exist within secure and internationally recognised borders. In return, the Palestinians' right to self-determination must be respected.
537 As my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury said, there have recently been several encouraging developments in the search for peace. Indeed, this afternoon I attended most useful talks between the Prime Minister and President Mubarak. The key element has been the agreement last month between King Hussein of Jordan and the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, on a joint negotiating position. We welcomed that agreement as a first step towards a settlement based on the exchange of peace for territory between Palestinians and Israel. Here is a basis on which further progress can be built.
Twice in recent months my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has discussed the prospects for a settlement in the middle east with the President of the United States. President Reagan made it clear to her that he accepted the need for renewed efforts to take forward the process begun by King Hussein and that the United States has a special responsibility in the region. The President has also made this view plain on the occasion of two other important recent visits to Washington, that of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia in February and that of President Mubarak of Egypt, which ended yesterday. I saw King Fahd and the Saudi Foreign Minister in Saudi Arabia last week and heard at first hand that the Saudi Government are also determined that the present opportunity for progress should not be lost.
As my hon. Friend said, we are honoured to have President Mubarak in Britain today as our guest. It is plain that, in addition to supporting strongly the initiatives of King Hussein and Mr. Arafat, President Mubarak is also ready to play his part in bringing nearer the decisive stage of direct negotiation between Israel and the Arab side.
We have also noted with interest that these developments are being followed closely in Israel and that Prime Minister Peres has commented favourably on some aspects. We have a regular dialogue with the Israeli Government and look forward to the visit of Deputy Prime Minister Shamir before too long.
We are profoundly concerned by the conditions which prevail within the occupied territories, notably in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Wells referred. My right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary drew our concern to the attention of the Government of Israel when he visited that country last October. We are in regular contact with representatives of the Palestinian people in those territories. We continue to deplore the strengthening of illegal Israeli settlements in their lands. We deeply regret the closure for two months of Bir Zeit university on the West Bank. We are also concerned about the economic conditions of the Palestinians in the occupied territories, and have recently increased the level of our aid.
My hon. Friends referred to the Lebanon. Recent developments there are a further indication of the destructive effect of the Arab-Israel conflict on the countries of that region. The horrifying events of the weekend in Beirut and in the south, in which further Lebanese and Israeli lives were lost, underline the urgent 538 need to break the cycle of violence. The Government's views are clear. We condemned the Israeli invasion of 1982. We have consistently called for the withdrawal of all foreign forces the presence of which is not authorised by the Lebanese Government. We therefore welcomed Israel's decision in January to make a full withdrawal and look for early and orderly completion of that pullback to the south of the international border. Israel must meanwhile respect international humanitarian law.
My hon. Friend the Member for Westbury referred to the British vote on the Lebanese draft resolution in the United Nations Security Council on 12 March. It was entirely right that the Security Council should discuss the situation in Lebanon. There were several elements of the draft which we could support, but, as a whole, it was unhelpful. It contained no reference to the role of UNIFIL, nor to the need to assist with the Secretary-General's efforts to promote a diplomatic solution. in our view, it would do nothing to arrest the cycle of violence or to accelerate Israel's withdrawal.
We remain deeply concerned about the situation in south Lebanon. We believe that Israel's iron fist policy will further fan the flames and damage her own security interests on her border with Lebanon. Violence of any sort, retaliation and counter-retaliation, will solve nothing. The need now is for a resumption of the Israel-Lebanon talks to make arrangements for an orderly withdrawal by the Israeli armed forces and for close co-operation with UNIFIL to protect Lebanese civilians.
My hon. Friend the Member for Westbury asked about the Iran-Iraq war. I should not end without saying something about the deterioration which the last few days have seen in that other appalling middle eastern conflict, the war between Iran and Iraq. We wish to see the earliest possible end to this tragic and wasteful episode. We have today been in touch with the United Nations Secretariat with the aim of a call being issued for a ceasefire on both sides. In the meantime, we are keeping a close watch on the situation of the British communities in Iran and Iraq. I am glad to say that we have had no reports of any British casualties, but we shall of course maintain maximum vigilance.
The middle east is an area of vital importance to Europe and to Western interests generally. The Government share the view expressed this evening that there is now a chance of progress in the search for a settlement of the Arab-Israel conflict. We look to the renewed efforts of the United States to take forward that process. We shall also continue to look for ways in which the European Community can play a helpful role and shall continue to use our influence to encourage the parties concerned to seek a peaceful resolution of their differences, so that the people of the middle east can at last enjoy a secure and dignified future, safe from the threat of violence and of war.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at twenty-six minutes to Eleven o' clock.