Foreign Affairs is one of my main interests in Parliament; I have a particular interest in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and, importantly, in the middle-east peace process intended to resolve it.
Israel and Palestine is a fantastic region, with a wonderfully rich history, beautiful scenery and really great people and it is nothing short of a tragedy that, for the past 60 years, Arab and Jew have been in conflict over the same relatively small piece of land.
I want to start this post by saying something which has, sadly in my opinion, become very contentious on the left in British politics in recent years: I consider myself to be a ‘friend’ of Israel. Of course, as parliamentary chair of Labour Friends of Israel, you might expect that statement to be a given. Actually I consider myself equally a ‘friend’ of Palestine and the Palestinian people, too. I don’t actually see why one should cancel out the other, particularly if we believe in a peace process where ultimately there will be two viable and secure states side-by-side, as I do.
I first visited Israel and the Palestinian Territories in 2007, and I have since led delegations of British MPs to the region in both 2008 and 2009. We get to meet a cross section of key people in Israel and Palestine including Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, US Lieutenant General Dayton and Quartet Representative, Tony Blair; through to the aid agencies, charities, teachers, doctors working hard on the ground for peace. We get from them all a clear understanding of the issues and the work being done to bring the two sides together.
Every time I visit the region, I am struck by the real optimism for the future despite all the seemingly intractable issues still on the table left unresolved. It is also very easy to focus on the things not going right and to ignore that real progress is actually being made too.
For example, in recent weeks, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has agreed to a US proposal for indirect peace talks with the Israeli government. That has to be a good thing. The British government has also continued to call for the resumption of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority towards a two state solution and the Egyptian and Jordanian leaderships have made positive statements on the need for renewed talks.
Movement and access, and the availability of water, continues to improve in the West Bank due to increased Israeli-Palestinian Authority cooperation. Indeed, the visible changes in Ramallah just between my visits in 2008 and 2009 were remarkable. The West Bank economy is growing by over 7% a year, assisted greatly by the lifting of movement restrictions as the British and US trained Palestinian policing units take more control over internal security; and it shows!
There is the problem of Hamas in Gaza, of course. This is a ‘two state’ peace process, not ‘three states’ but Palestinian unity is proving very difficult to achieve, despite Egypt’s best endeavours to bring Fatah and Hamas together. Equally, as life for ordinary Palestinians in the West Bank improves considerably, the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip remains dire with Israel and Egypt severely restricting the quantity and type of goods allowed into the territory in an effort to prevent Hamas from manufacturing and firing rockets.
As a result, much of the extensive infrastructure damage caused by last winter’s Israeli military operation is yet to be repaired. The British government rightly pledged £54 million in emergency aid over the last year to meet the needs of the people of Gaza, and in December 2009, DfID pledged an additional £5 million for teachers for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which provides schooling for 206,000 children in the territory.
So some things are improving – albeit I admit very slowly on the political front – and there are still some very difficult issues to be resolved on Jewish settlements, final borders and on the eventual status of Jerusalem. There is also a niggling fear in the minds of ordinary Israeli citizens that, despite the recent period of quiet, rocket attacks could easily be resumed from both Gaza and Lebanon.
Let me end this post on an optimistic note: In a CNN interview on 7 February, King Abdullah of Jordan urged the USA to give the peace process its “undivided attention”, asserting that “the overwhelming majority of Israelis and Palestinians want a two-state solution as soon as possible”. He’s right.
Can a lasting peace be achieved soon? With that renewed effort, I very much hope so! The opportunities and benefits for the region are there to be grabbed. After 60 years of conflict, the time is indeed right.
Andrew, as a British born Jew I have to echo your sentiments that now is the time for peace. I myself have family in Israel and I visit every year and it is getting better but it is still very far from perfect. I feel nothing but compassion toward the Palestinian people as do many if not most Israelis but we must end violence. Only then can peace be achieved.
I would love to see peace in the Middle East in my lifetime (we’ve got 60 years to do it hopefully!) but I am very pessimistic about the prospects.
Peace will be impossible while Israel continues to portray itself as the eternal victim and uses this justification for its human rights abuses in Gaza and over the Arab people in general. Being the victim of terrorist attacks does not excuse racist and grave violations of human rights (e.g. restrictions on access to water and essential goods for survival, control of the West Bank, continued violations of the Palestinian’s right to property, and the disproportionate use of force over civilians).
Until Israel learns to accept this, there will be no peace in that region. I’m no expert on the matter, but Israel and its allies (particularly the US and the UK) need to accept that military force is not the answer, and that political negotiation and acceptance needs to occur. This means a two-state solution and autonomy for the Palestinian people. If it can occur in Northern Ireland, there is no reason why a political compromise cannot occur in the Middle East. The US and the UK must foster this, but Israel needs to be treated like all other states, and condemned whenever it uses military force against another people. Issues like Mossad’s killing of a leader of Hamas, the use of White Phosphorous etc need to be addressed and some form of sanction or censure needs to be applied to Israel, and the Israeli leadership needs to have the honesty and credibility to accept the rulings of the UN. The treatment of the UN’s report into the 2008 Gaza conflict by Israel was extremely rude and must be condemned.
Likewise, Hamas must renounce violence and show signs that it will come to an internal compromise with Fatah and not use violence as the answer to their problems. They also need to be much stronger in resisting the controlling influences from other Middle Eastern states, such as Iran and Syria.
The only problem is that, because of Israel’s childish actions, they are stuck in a vicious circle, where both sides feel under constant attack, with a ‘he started it’ attitude, and will not respect the authority of the UN in trying to foster a solution. Therefore, it will take a significant act of courage on the part of Israel or Hamas to bring this cycle to an end. This is why I’m pessimistic that peace will be achieved, because there is very little political incentive to bring this to an end. Both sides use the same rhetoric for their positions, and have nothing to gain in the short term (which is the only mode of vision for politicians), so until they’re forced to by the US/US/Middle Eastern countries to come to a compromise, nothing will change and the vicious circle will continue.
Actually, I wish to amend the first sentence of the last paragraph. Instead of “Israel’s childish actions” I should have put “both sides childish actions” because both sides have been responsible for pretty childish behaviour.
But, I do inherently side with the Palestinian people because I see Israel as an aggressor in a majority of situations.
Wasn’t sure whether to amend the original or post both comments… resorted to the latter – hope ok – either way, your comments are clarified.
Andrew, I fear the headline of this article may be more apt than you realise. Not so much because I question whether peace is possible, but rather your use of Chamberlain’s words as he stepped onto the tarmac at Heston in 1938 summon familiar feelings that we associate with them now – He had read the situation facing him incorrectly.
Since you placed your cards on the table I shall do the same. I am a member of the Labour Friends of Palestine and have worked for Palestinian interest groups in Washington DC. I was until a short while ago a student campaigner on this issue and wrote my dissertation on the peace process at the LSE. I too see no reason why a Friend of Palestine cannot also be a friend of Israel; indeed, it is my belief that to be a true friend of Israel, one must be a friend of Palestine and demand Palestinian self-determination.
I understand this is a very short piece, but there are a number of very important factors missing. First of all you focus on the economic situation in the West Bank without looking at the other – some would say more important – provocations towards radicalism and obstacles to peace, namely: settlement growth, the security barrier, ethnocratic legal restrictions (.e.g. Jewish only roads), the confiscation of water resources and farmland, demolition of farmland, settler attacks and, of course, the continuing annexation of Occupied East Jerusalem. These are, of course, not the only outstanding issues. I also seriously contest your assertions regarding the “lifting of movement restrictions” as flying checkpoints, closures and roadblocks are in actuality at an all time high. My point is simply this; growing wealth does not and can not assuage the political effects growing injustices. So long as such injustices served by Israel upon the Palestinians continue, frustration and radicalisation will undermine moderate voices such as Fayyad and Abbas and push the situation away from peace.
The same is true of Gaza. You make the case that Israel’s siege is to do with preventing Hamas rocket fire. Hamas gets everything it needs to rebuild and rearm through the tunnels to Egypt. Stopping cement, panes of glass, many foods, books nails and screws (amongst the long list of prohibitions) at the border crossings serves only to prevent the reconstruction of homes, schools, hospitals, farms and even Gaza’s only sewerage treatment plant – destroyed by Israel. Israel’s blockade serves only collectively punish the Gazan people and push them even further into the arms of Hamas.
None of this is to let Hamas or Fatah off of the hook with regards to their own, sometimes shoddy dealings with one another and Israel and I am happy to condemn terror in all its forms. However, to see this as a ‘conflict’ with ‘two sides’ and to sideline Israel’s continuing actions, is to ignore not only the concessions the Palestinians already tried for peace from 1988-2000, but to misrepresent the situation entirely. Israel is standing at all the doors and is holding all the keys to peace, as is the nature of the very lopsided power dynamic between an occupier and the occupied.
We must engage responsibly with this issue if we are to uphold human rights and liberty for all. A true friend of Israel must be a critical friend and answer the question, “How do we end the violence?” with an eye to causality. Injustices drive people to radicalism. End the injustices and abide by the inalienable right to self determination and we will see radicalism and violence will evaporate.
Now comrade, we have a general election to win.
Thanks for your views. As I said on Twitter, my original article was about three times as long and actually touched on many of the issues you raised, especially movement in the West Bank. We had a very interesting briefing with Dayton and his staff about the difference the removal of the checkpoints has made. Certainly some recent events I cut out of the article include:
• Jihad Bashir, Head of the Bilateral Joint Technical Committee of the Palestinian Water Authority, released a statement on 17 February saying that approval was given for dozens of new Palestinian wells to be dug across the West Bank. According to Bashir, these projects include the digging of a new well in Jerusalem district to provide residents with an additional 300-400 cubic metres of water per month. All of the projects have suffered years of delays since they are in West Bank Area C and therefore under the control of the Israeli military, rather than Palestinian Authority.
• On 4 January Israeli forces re-opened the northern entrance to the West Bank town of Halhul, following 10 years of closure. There have also been a number of other improvements in Palestinian movement and access in recent weeks. The Israeli Supreme Court ruled on 29 December that the part of Israel’s Highway 443 which is in the West Bank should not be closed to Palestinians. The Highway, which is a main road between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, was closed to Palestinian traffic in 2002 after a series of terrorist attacks against Israeli vehicles in which six people were killed. The Supreme Court has given the Israeli military five months to devise new security arrangements to allow the reopening of the 14km stretch of the road in the West Bank to Palestinian use.
In addition, on 17 December 2009 Israel removed the concrete blocks and metal gate which comprised the Beit Iba military checkpoint west of the city of Nablus to allow “free passage” of Palestinians in and out of Nablus as a part of a “general plan of goodwill”.
On your comment “We must engage responsibly with this issue if we are to uphold human rights and liberty for all. A true friend of Israel must be a critical friend and answer the question, “How do we end the violence?” with an eye to causality. Injustices drive people to radicalism. End the injustices and abide by the inalienable right to self determination and we will see radicalism and violence will evaporate.” I totally agree 100%.
Maybe you should post the recent bad news regarding Israeli actions announced to build hundreds more homes on Palestinian soil.
So that is definately what intimidation is and is not appropriate to seeking peace.
So do you support the ongoing building of homes for Iraeli`s whereas the UN states it should not,or do you oppose such further intimidating acts Mr Gwynne
Its another straight yes/no question.
The UK government’s position is that settlement building in the Palestinian Territories runs counter to the peace accords and international law and I support that position fully.
It appears another somewhat cynical comment has just been made by the Forign Secretary in the House of Commons in answer to Ms Ellman ie: “It is important that the message goes out very clearly that we expect all sides to live up to their international, as well as domestic, obligations under international law.D.Miliband” So how often since the 1940`s have the UK Government made it perfectly plain that UN Directives towards Israel are still being breached and treated with cotempt. Israel has spent 50 years treating the Worlds Nations with contempt towards UN sanctions,which indicates a determined and perpetual decision to intimidate other Middle Eastern Countries over many years without sanctions being implemented.
Now knowing that our MP is a Friend of Palestine which you clearly stated in the opening pages,and which I am very pleased to know,surely it be appropriate therefore for you to join the “Palestine in Parliament Group” so as to demonstrate outwardly your impartiality on Middle Eastern Affairs, and it would confirm your “Friendship with Palestinians” which I feel they would welcome.
[...] on the Chair of Labour Friends of Israel, Andrew Gwynne’s blog he has said: “I am happy to condemn terror in all its [...]