Occupied Palestinian Territories: Development

Lord Gold Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Gold (Con)]

The International Development Select Committee has proposed a number of positive recommendations concerning the UK’s development work in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, not least the resumption of peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians. I am pleased that the committee recognised that Hamas’s charter continues to call for the destruction of Israel and condemned the continuous rocket attacks perpetrated from Gaza.

I, too, recommend and welcome the resumption of peace talks but for such an initiative to be successful some trust must be built up between the parties. As I have said before, in my view the starting point has to be a recognition by Hamas that Israel has the right to exist. If, as the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, said, the majority of Palestinians do not accept the charter, let them come forward and say that. No two-state solution can get off the ground without that.

Secondly, there has to be a stop to the continuing rocket attacks on Israel, which terrorise the civilian population. Unfortunately, since the publication of the committee’s report, the safety position in Israel has worsened, with a new threat of knife attacks, mostly on civilians going about their daily lives. Since September 2015 there have been at least 323 stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks. Fortunately, not all have resulted in fatalities but that does not reduce the seriousness of these terrible crimes. No wonder the Israelis fear that peace talks will get nowhere. The stabbings have to stop as well. If the terrorist activity ended, including the building of a new network of tunnels in Gaza, I believe that Israel would be more receptive to easing the travel restrictions and the movement of goods.

I recognise that the peace process has to be a two-way affair. In my view, if both sides genuinely want to achieve peace, Israel for its part must also move its position. The best way of doing that is that, simultaneously with the ending of terrorist acts, Israel should stop the building and expansion of settlements.