Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Martin Docherty-Hughes

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

I think the Foreign Secretary touched on this, and it was very much the focus of my attention when I visited the country last week. The way the liberation will move is that the east side of the city, on the right-hand side of the Tigris, will be liberated first, and there are plans for ward breakdowns to make sure the necessary leaders come in to provide that security, improvised explosive devices are removed, the water supplies are working and the place itself safe. It will take time, and this needs to be an Iraqi-led process, but the international community, through the United Nations Development Programme, is working very hard to make sure it is a success.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

8. What recent representations he has made to his Israeli counterpart on the announcement by the Prime Minister of Israel of a new settlement at Shiloh in the west bank in October 2016.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

On 5 October, I issued a press statement condemning the announcement of the proposed settlement in Shiloh. In September, I met Defence Minister Lieberman and raised our concerns about settlements, and made it clear that unless they form part of a land swap anyone living there must live with the knowledge that they will one day have to move. That was accepted by Defence Minister Lieberman, who is living in one of the settlements himself.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

Does the Minister not therefore agree with me that a pillar of liberal democracy and the peace it brings is the rule of law, and that by reactively legalising illegal settlements on Palestinian land the Government of Benjamin Netanyahu continue to undermine democracy and progress to a lasting peace in the middle east?

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Gentleman touches on a process in which these illegal settlements become legal, and we have raised concerns about this.

The settlement of Shiloh is significant because it allows an extension of the settlement area east of Ariel, which essentially, between Nablus and Ramallah, cuts off or breaks the west bank from the River Jordan all the way to green-line Israel. That means effectively ruling out the possibility of a two-state solution.