Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140-159)
18 NOVEMBER 2003
THE RT
HON HILARY
BENN MP AND
MR ALISTAIR
FERNIE
Q140 Mr Walter: The argument comes
back to the Geneva Convention and so on. There is one particular
area where I thought that the Israelis perhaps could be of some
assistance where in fact their policy has been the opposite, which
is in the security situation. They obviously have, as you have
witnesses on the ground, an awful lot of security forces, and
yet the Palestinians effectively, although they have got them
on the payroll, do not have any security services. Do you think
the Israelis could perhaps fulfil their desire that the Palestinian
Authority have an effective security force if the Israelis provided
some help?
Hilary Benn: We certainly have
been trying to provide practical help to the Palestinian Authority
on the issue of security. Everybody recognises the desire of both
the Palestinians and the Israelis to have security. Although my
visit was to the Palestinian Territories I also paid a private
visit to the Hebrew University and it turned out that I arrived
the evening before the first anniversary of the bomb that killed
I think it was nine young students in the cafeteria there. Innocent
lives are being lost on both sides and one recognises that absolutely.
The people of Israel have a right to security and I understand
their desire to try and achieve it. The question for everybody
is: are people taking the right steps to create the political
circumstances in which support for those who are using violence
will be undercut, and eventually will fade away? Certainly as
far as we are concerned an important part of our programme has
been working with the Palestinian Authority on security sector
reform. That, I must tell the Committee frankly, has been put
on hold in view of recent circumstances with the collapse of Abu
Mazen's Government and the interregnum there has been while there
has been the argument about what should replace it. We now have
the new setup, and I think we will want to see how Hakam Balawi
is going to perform in his new responsibility. We will obviously
have to make a judgement about fiduciary and political risk, because
we were in the process of preparing a larger programme of security
sector reform at the time that the hudna came to an end when that
first bombing took place. We see that as an important part of
the work that we do. In so far as I can speak of a perception
on the Israeli side, the Israelis will say (not unreasonably),
"We are looking to the Palestinian Authority to make 100%
effort on the security front". But it needs to have the capacity,
and that is partly about sorting out the rather complex internal
structures that there are, to which you alluded, but also making
sure that there is the practical capacity on the ground to take
the responsibility as a security authority for trying to ensure
that people are not able to explode bombs which of course completely
undermines the peace process that everybody is anxious to get
back on track.
Q141 Hugh Bayley: I think I am right
in saying that the global aid programme to the Palestinian Territories
on a per capita basis is one of the largest in the world, and
I appreciate that the aid agencies are working in extremely difficult
circumstances in the Occupied Territories, but nevertheless it
struck me that there was quite a serious problem of lack of co-ordination
between agencies. For instance, in Jenin we saw UNRWA delivering
food to refugee families and the World Food Programme delivering
food from separate depots and separate trucks to non-refugees
living close by. We saw an UNRWA-run school a few hundred metres
from a Palestinian Authority and international donor funded school
serving the same communities, but historical differences meant
that different agencies are providing different services. That
cannot be an efficient use of aid. What is DFID doing to try and
achieve better co-ordination between the various agencies so that
aid buys as much assistance as possible?
Hilary Benn: As your question
identifies, Mr Bayley, there are two issues here. One is that
distinction that I touched on in my answer to the earlier question,
about the special status of UNRWA and of the refugees. My impression
is that people are very attached to that politically, for all
sorts of reasons that I am sure the Committee will understand.
I do not think there is much prospect of dealing with that division
because of the political and other significance of it. As far
as co-ordination between donors is concerned for the aid that
we give to the Palestinian Authority and civil society and others
apart from UNRWA—and I met a number of the donors on the
first evening that I was there and asked this very question—there
is a lot of discussion and obviously there are a lot of people
involved. I think the honest truth is that there is a fair degree
of co-ordination and harmonisation but we could do better. I think
I would acknowledge that openly. Part of the difficulty is that,
of course, different aid agencies operate in different ways and
have different reporting requirements, and some are more relaxed
about forms of support which others would not be prepared to contemplate.
That is one issue. Secondly, there has been an issue about effective
co-ordination on the Palestinian Authority side and the changes
of government and personnel do not necessarily assist in that
process. But I accept entirely the thrust of your question that
we need to be sure that we are doing all that we possibly can
to address the question of effective co-ordination so that we
get maximum impact for the money that we spend. But I do not think
that that objective is going to be able to resolve the distinction
between the aid that does not go through UNRWA and the UNRWA setup,
because that is bound up in something that is much bigger, which
co-ordination itself could not solve.
Q142 Hugh Bayley: Your Department
is considering the case for directly supporting the PA's budget.
Would such budget support be seen as an effective way of delivering
emergency relief by means of the PA salaries that it would support,
or is it seen as a development intervention aimed at building
the PA's capacity and, perhaps more widely, does it make sense
to talk about budget support in the current situation where the
Palestinian Authority lacks legitimacy and credibility?
Hilary Benn: You are right: we
have not up until now given budget support. Our general policy
in other countries and other circumstances is that this is most
effective when you are doing it alongside other donors. The Palestinian
Authority is clearly in a different position. The first thing
we have to recognise is that under Salaam Fayyad, who is the Finance
Minister, there is across the donors—including the United
States of America, which I think is quite significant—an
appreciation of the role that he has played in trying to get a
grip on funds. Certainly I and colleagues from DFID have been
very impressed by our dealings with him. Reform of the Palestinian
Authority, the way in which it works to address problems of
corruption and ineffectiveness, is extremely important. It goes
back to the point I was making earlier. As and when we get to
the possibility of a Palestinian state we need to have a functioning
authority which can assume those responsibilities and in order
to do that you need the finances to work, you need people to have
confidence in the system, and I think he has done a very important
job. And that has been reflected in the growing confidence of
donors in him and his role and therefore it is very important
that he is back in the new Cabinet once again as Finance Minister.
We did support the European Union's use of emergency direct budget
support to offset the deficit caused by the withholding of tax
revenues by the Israeli Government. We are currently working with
the World Bank on what in their jargon they describe as a country
financial accountability assessment, which is looking at the strengths
and weaknesses of PA systems, and we are as we speak looking at
earmarking for the first time some budget support which would
be used to pay off £5 million worth of the Palestinian Authority's
VAT debts to UNRWA. This is something I reflected on when I visited
at the end of July and announced that we would increase our support
overall by £10 million. We decided that £5 million of
that should go to UNRWA for reasons that I have just indicated,
and, secondly, the rest of the money would be support to the PA.
We have had a discussion internally about how we might provide
that support, recognising that there would be reservations about
providing direct budget support in the form that we do with other
countries, because we have to go through a process of satisfying
ourselves that the systems and structures are in place to account
for how that money is spent, and it would not be right to do that
without having gone through that process in relation to the Palestinian
Authority. By using the mechanism "earmarked direct budget
support" in effect you have a way of absolutely satisfying
yourself that the money has gone to UNRWA, that it has wiped off
some of the debts and therefore it has the effect of being budget
support without raising the difficulties of systems and tracking
the money through. That is what we are working on as we speak,
because it seems to us a practical contribution we can make, in
particular given the Palestinian Authority's current financial
circumstances.
Q143 Hugh Bayley: We too were impressed
by the Finance Minister, are glad that he is still there and hope
that DFID will be supportive. However, the fact remains that the
Palestinian Authority does not have a poverty reduction strategy
which would normally be seen as one of the keys to providing budget
support. Does that mean that DFID is treating the Palestinian
Authority as a special case? Does DFID see the Palestinian Authority's
own development plan as playing the part that a Poverty Reduction
Strategy would play in other countries? Finally, you mentioned
the DFID/World Bank financial accountability assessment. When
will an interim or final report be published?
Hilary Benn: The Authority is
in the process of drawing up what it describes as its stabilisation
plan, which we will be looking at closely to see to what extent
it addresses some of the issues that you have highlighted in your
question. On the final question you asked about when that assessment
might be done. The honest answer is I do not know, but Mr Fernie
might be able to assist us.
Mr Fernie: The report was initially
due to be ready in January, but the World Bank, who are leading
on this exercise, are now trying to accelerate perhaps not a final
version, but an interim version before the meeting of the Ad Hoc
Liaison Committee which is now, we think, going to be re-scheduled
for 12 December. This will be Salaam Fayyad and the PA's opportunity
to present to the international community their budget for 2004.
We think that accelerating the CFAA process would be a good idea
because Salaam Fayyad deserves as far as possible some early indication
from donors of what kind of support they will be able to provide
in 2004. And we are not the only donor who is keen to see the
results of the CFAA process before we take decisions about that.
Q144 Tony Worthington: The impression,
repeated many times by, for example, people like you and OCHA
is that the reason that you do not get development is that there
is military occupation and they are advocating that there should
be much more political advocacy to deal with the cause of the
problem rather than just talk about the mechanics of how development
assistance is given out. How do you feel our government co-ordinates
its activities in this respect because you have got a front line
role to end the appalling poverty but you do not have the control
over the political dimensions or the trade dimensions? How do
you co-ordinate with the FCO and the DTI?
Hilary Benn: We obviously discuss
as colleagues extensively the position that the Middle East finds
itself in. As the Department for International Development, as
you say, we have got the particular responsibilities that we have.
Nobody is in any doubt about our view and it is the view of the
FCO and the DTI and the British Government as a whole, that it
is a political solution which is the only thing that is going
to deal with these fundamental problems that we are trying to
mitigate, and to help support the Palestinian Authority and
the Palestinian people in dealing with the circumstances that
they find themselves in. Just going back to the beginning of your
question, Mr Worthington, yes, the occupation is one thing. The
Intifada, particularly in the last two years, in view of all the
indicators in terms of levels of unemployment and health and so
on, has had a real adverse impact. There is no question about
that whatsoever, and therefore in that sense has not assisted
the condition of the Palestinian people. More generally, the UK
Government has played an important role alongside others in the
international community in trying to support the peace process,
recognising that in the end this has to be a combination of international
interest and pressure, but alongside it has to come the political
leadership from both the parties to the conflict in order to enable
a negotiation to take place. In the end you cannot achieve it
only with the international pressure and interest and attention.
If you have not got the political leadership from within, in terms
of both the Palestinians and the Israelis, then it is hard to
see how a solution is going to be reached. One of the concerns
that everybody has at the moment, obviously, is that as facts
on the ground change—and you will have seen that during
the course of your visit—it creates difficulty for the two-state
solution that has been the basis of the Roadmap and all of the
effort in recent times. That is why it is very important that
we should do all that we can to try and get the process back on
track because without that we are not going to solve this.
Q145 Tony Worthington: I am just
wondering on a day-by-day, month-by-month basis how coherent the
action is, not just by our own Government but by the EU, by the
Americans, to be putting on constant pressure rather than isolated,
individualistic pressure about individual circumstances. Do you
have a sense that there is an overall international coherence?
Hilary Benn: Unquestionably there
has been an international coherence behind the Roadmap process,
and the fact that the Roadmap was published was itself extremely
significant. The effort that went into that, including from the
UK, the Quartet and the Americans and so on, was co-ordinated,
and when I visited at the end of July we were in the period that
the Hudna was holding. However, I would say that there was certainly
a perception on the Palestinian side that they were not seeing
sufficient movement. That was what people said to me. I am sure
they said it to you when you visited, that they had not seen sufficient
movement in order to build confidence in a political solution
to this as opposed to other solutions that others have advocated.
The second thing I would say, based on my observations on the
ground, is that there is a need for better monitoring of both
parties' adherence to the commitments that they have entered into
as part of the Roadmap process. Because that seemed to be the
subject of a lot of argument and dispute. I would describe the
Roadmap as a pretty coherent international effort. It has broken
down to date for the reasons that we all understand, but it is
the only proposal on the table and that is why it is important.
Now that there is a new Palestinian Government in place, we need
to reach a stage where confidence begins to edge back up. With
the bombing in August, of course, you can erode a lot of confidence
that has built up over time, in little steps, by one act like
that. That sends you back down the escalator of progress and the
question is, can we work our way back up again? I think the international
community in general understands only too well why trying to solve
this problem matters enormously, not just for the people of the
Middle East but for the world, because this is a running sore.
There is no other way to describe it.
Q146 Mr Davies: I wonder if I could
ask two questions, both about the use of leverage? The first one
is this. The EU has a trade agreement with Israel and we also
have an agreement with Palestine allowing them access for their
foreign produce into Europe. In practice I understand, because
of Israeli measures, it is very difficult for the Palestinians
to get any goods out and it is virtually impossible to get perishable
goods to the European market. Is there scope within the context
of our trade agreement with Israel, that is to say, the EU trade
agreement with Israel, to take up this matter and to try to ensure
better access for Palestinian products in the European market?
Hilary Benn: People have certainly
looked at the EU Association agreement on the question of leverage,
and some have argued that this should be used in order to try
and add political pressure to the process. There is not a consensus
of view across the EU as far as that is concerned because I think
people have formed the view that other forms of political dialogue
and discussion are the ones that we should pursue in order to
try and build confidence and encourage those both in Israel and
on the Palestinian side, in order to make greater progress towards
a political solution. As we speak today, or certainly this morning,
as part of a General Affairs Council [General Affairs and External
Relations Council]which is taking place in Brussels and which
I was at yesterday evening in connection with the development
discussions, that is one of the topics that is being discussed.
Whether there is potential within the agreement to provide greater
access for Palestinian goods I do not know but I would very happily
make some enquiries and we can send the Committee a note on that
subject if I may[2].
Q147 Mr Davies: Thank you. The second
question I want to ask, also on leverage, is in the other direction.
To what extent would DFID be prepared to contemplate using your
aid programmes, particularly in Palestine, particularly if you
get into the business of budgetary support for the Palestinian
Authority, to improve the behaviour of the Palestinian Authority
in whatever way, but particularly, for example, would you be prepared
in some circumstances to contemplate withdrawing that support
if you did not think the Palestinian Authority were fulfilling
their commitments under the Roadmap and perhaps specifically were
not doing all in their power to prevent terrorism from taking
place in their territory or from their territory directly against
Israel?
Hilary Benn: As I indicated in
answer to an earlier question, we have not up until this point
given direct budget support. The thing that we are contemplating
at the moment, to use the second half of the £10 million
additional assistance which I announced when I visited in July,
one could regard as a form of budget support, but in practice,
by sending the money direct to UNRWA, it is not budget support
in the sense that we would traditionally understand it. We have
been very cautious, for the reasons that I explained earlier,
because one needs to be able to satisfy oneself about the structures
and the mechanisms that are in place. Certainly the thrust of
our programme in working with the Palestinian Authority is about
trying to improve its performance and effectiveness. There is
not currently a direct linkage in the sense that you describe
it, except that working on security reform is entirely intended
to be about trying to improve the effectiveness of the Palestinian
Authority in addressing security problems, recognising that the
international community and the UK Government, the Foreign Office,
obviously, which leads on these matters, and ourselves are saying,
"Look: if the Roadmap is to have a chance of success then
the Palestinian Authority does need to be showing itself to be
making all the effort that it reasonably can to tackle the problem
of terrorism for the reason that that will help to build confidence
on the Israeli side and hopefully then support the process of
dialogues and talks". In that sense, by choosing security
sector reform (and it is on hold at the moment because of the
uncertainty there has been following the change of government)
as a priority for the work that we do with the Palestinian Authority,
alongside other things, including the backing we give to the Negotiation
Support Unit, which is another very practical contribution to
developing capacity to negotiate a peace process, I think that
is a way of sending a very clear message that we are looking for
reform which addresses precisely the questions you have identified.
Q148 Hugh Bayley: May I return to
Quentin's first question, which I thought was particularly interesting?
Trade agreements, whether global trade agreements through the
WTO or regional agreements such as between members of the EU,
or bilateral agreements, normally embody the principle of reciprocity.
What you give is what you get in return from the other partner.
Because of the nature of the occupation and closure of the Palestinian
Territories you have in effect an enforced customs regime—I
nearly used the phrase "enforced customs union" but
it is not a customs union—imposed by the state of Israel
on Palestinian imports and exports, which is clearly a restraint
on Palestinian trade. If the Palestinian Authority was a member
of the WTO I think they could go to the WTO and get those
restraints removed, or at least get compensation for those restraints,
but they are not a member of the WTO because they are not a state,
so that normal procedure for redress is not available to them.
Do you not think that our government and the EU should insist
that the normal evenhandedness, reciprocity, that is part of all
trade agreements must apply in this case equally to the Palestinians
as to the state of Israel and that if it does not apply then the
agreement has to be changed or possibly even withdrawn with both
parties? We cannot have a situation where there is a three-way
involvement in trade and one party can exercise restraint against
another party without suffering any penalty for doing so.
Hilary Benn: I do accept that
this is one of a number of difficulties which relate to the relationship
between the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority.
And in respect of this, and others, we can encourage and cajole
and request, and we may or may not have success. But it is taking
the political process forward which is the key to unlocking all
of these things. I think to the extent that people look to some
of these particular issues and think, "If only we did something
on that front", and I think it is a political judgment, "If
we did something on that front this might unlock the political
process which is currently stalled". My view is I think it
is other things that need to happen for this to occur. Mr Fernie
may be able to assist us on some of the technicalities to do with
the trade agreements.
Q149 Hugh Bayley: Could I just put
one further brief point to you, Secretary of State, and then I
would very much like to hear Mr Fernie's comment. I suggest this,
not just to provide leverage, as Quentin Davies suggests, but
it seems to me that without the opportunity for Palestinians to
produce goods and services and sell them on the world market and
make a viable economic future for themselves, the pressures which
are exploited by the terrorists in the Palestinian camp, the opportunities
which are there for the terrorists in the Palestinian camp, will
grow and grow but by fostering trade and a viable Palestinian
private sector one would actually be providing some hope of developing
capacity within the Palestinian camp where it can find a peaceful
way forward and an end to this ghastly dispute.
Hilary Benn: I do accept the premise
on which you base the question. Just going back a stage, just
recounting to the Committee one of the things that I saw on my
visit to Gaza. There is a difficulty even before you get to the
stage of the situation that you describe. We visited a tile factory
and this was an important local employer. From memory I think
it employed 80 to 90 people. It had been set up a number of years
previously by the father of the son who is currently running it.
Two or three weeks before, I think, it had been completely destroyed—by
Israeli Defence Forces I was told, but I cannot verify this—because
a couple of people had shot at the Israeli Defence Forces from
a wall at the side of the factory. The story as it was described
to me was that the Israeli Defence Forces then came in and literally
destroyed the equipment. I saw that with my own eyes. You asked
in your question about the possibility of exporting, and this
was a tile factory, I understand, that was exporting, not just
to Israel but to other countries within the region. It had provided
a form of important employment, quite high skilled and certainly
from the machinery quite high tech, relatively speaking, and that
livelihood had completely disappeared in the course of that particular
operation. The son said his father came, saw the business which
he had worked 40 years to establish, burst into tears and went
away again, he said "I cannot cope with this any more".
I just recount that particular story because it demonstrates the
more fundamental problem which is, in that case, the result of
action taken that destroyed a source of employment in an area
where there is an extremely high level of unemployment, as everybody
recognises. That is a kind of first order question and then one
gets on to the consequences, hence my reiteration of the point
that it is a political solution that in the end provides the answer
to all of these things, difficult though it is to try and achieve
it. Mr Fernie is going to say a word about trade.
Mr Fernie: Certainly I would not
claim to be a trade expert but maybe a word about trade within
the context of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. There are
several points of tension between the EU and Israel about the
Association Agreement, which includes Article 2 on Human Rights
and other issues on trade which are perhaps in some ways more
pressing, including the issue of goods from settlements, which
I presume some of the Members are familiar with. The EU has thought
quite hard about its approach to discussions with Israel about
these issues, and some of these issues will be on the agenda today
for the ministerial meeting in Brussels where EU foreign ministers
are discussing with Silvan Shalom, the Israeli Foreign Minister,
how progress on the EU-Israel Association Agreement is going.
I think the conclusion within the EU is that the key to this is
to change the incentive structure for the Israeli Government.
So whatever measures the EU might take need to be formed with
that in mind, with an emphasis on proportionality, reversibility,
and I think also US support for whatever the EU might do is absolutely
essential if we are to focus on trying to improve the prospects.
I suspect the issue that you particularly raise may become of
much greater importance if we move slightly further down the road
towards a viable two state solution. At the moment I think in
some ways the prior issue is still closures, because even if on
Israeli borders there is co-operation about Palestinian goods
being exported to the EU or other places, there is a much more
fundamental issue which is about closures, curfews, back-to-back,
which we talked about in September when we gave evidence to you
the first time. There are some people thinking of imaginative
solutions to that. UNRWA, for example, is trying to explore the
extent to which a fairly educated but rather imprisoned Palestinian
workforce could be providing back office IT services of the kind
which are now regularly being sourced from India or other developing
countries. But at the end of the day that is really tampering
with the problem. I think even if it was possible to change the
perspective of Israel on the export of Palestinian goods from
the West Bank, Gaza, Israel's greater land mass, there is still
a prior problem which is that is not going to address the massive
economic slowdown, and is not going to enable Palestinian entrepreneurs
and exporters to be able to get their goods out in sufficient
quantities to create the economic growth which is needed to address
poverty and frustration.
Q150 Mr Battle: One of the things
that I found surprising perhaps when we visited was the expression
"refugee camp", particularly "camp" because
they were not camps in the traditional image of camps in Africa,
tented towns of people displaced, they were people living in houses,
owning their own properties and land. I understand why people
have separated out the questions of status and state homelessness
and therefore want to retain the status of refugee in order to
clarify their status later, but that did have a strange knock-on
effect because although usually UNHCR is the UN agency responsible
for refugees, it cannot act as a representative for refugees and
Palestinian refugees are not the responsibility of UNHCR as UNRWA
was established especially to provide for their needs. They told
us that they avoid acting as a representative for refugees to
avoid being caught in the political process and we were told it
was the role of the special co-ordinator, UNSCO, to act as the
advocate, not just for the refugees but for all Palestinians.
I just wondered what does your Department think of UNSCO? How
effective are they in that role? Should UNRWA not have a greater
representational or advocacy role because otherwise, in a sense,
the situation goes on forever of them simply supplying for needs
without putting any pressure on for change?
Hilary Benn: It is a very interesting
question, who has the responsibility for representation of
the Palestinian people. What your question demonstrates and
returns to is the peculiar situation that arises because of the
different status that people have got arising out of the history
of the problem. Obviously UNRWA is limited in what it can do in
that respect and it focuses very hard on the provision of services.
And, as I said, it does so very effectively. I think my own view
would be that in the end we are looking to the Palestinian Authority
to be the representative and spokesperson, because it is to the
Palestinian Authority that we are looking to be one side of the
negotiation which everybody hopes in the end will lead to a solution
and the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. Recognising
that there will be questions arising out of refugee status and
all of those, what are known in the jargon as the end issues that
you get to, the difficult things. The Roadmap quite deliberately
left the more difficult problems until the end of the process,
not unreasonably arguing that if we can build confidence, peace
and stability, ease some of the closures, deal with the violence,
we create the political circumstances in which it is more possible
to then deal with the status of Jerusalem, refugees and so on
and so forth. From our point of view, I do not think we get terribly
bound up in what the representational role is of UNSCO as opposed
to UNRWA as opposed to the Palestinian Authority because I think
what we are trying to do is to work towards a situation where
(a) there is a political solution and (b) the Palestinian Authority
can clearly assume that responsibility on behalf of everybody,
a political solution having been reached. It was not a difficulty
that certainly was drawn to my attention during my visit or, indeed,
subsequently.
Q151 Ann Clwyd: I was not on the
visit this time but I have been there previously. What I saw happening
on the ground and what the Committee saw happening on the ground
was the continuing growth of the settlements and the building
of the wall. Some people see these sorts of activities as a deliberate
attempt to weaken the Palestinian Authority in the run-up to a
final settlement. I wondered if you saw it in that way? Could
you tell us what impact you see the wall having on development
in the Occupied Territories and, secondly, on a possible political
settlement?
Hilary Benn: The wall—it
is both a wall and a fence physically—is a symptom of the
problem. I said in answer to an earlier question that everybody
understands completely the Israeli Government's and Israeli people's
desire for security. Having seen the impact of some of the attacks
and the bombings, and the attacks on settlers and so on, one recognises
that entirely. But it is a symptom of the problem and I do not
think in the end it is a lasting solution. The government has
made it very clear that we regard the building of the wall on
Palestinian land as illegal. But what really struck me when I
went to Qalqilya on the final day of my visit was you arrived,
and the gap between the wall coming up to the town and then encircling
it completely and coming back, I think from memory was about eight
metres, I think that was how it was described by the mayor whom
we met when we were there. I remember talking to farmers who said,
"We have been promised gates but we have been told that only
the person who owns the land may be able to go through and we
cannot take any equipment with us, so how exactly do we harvest
the fields that are on the other side of the wall, which were
just a walk away before, but now we have this barrier to get through?
How exactly do we harvest and bring that back?" For those
people who have been cut off from their source of livelihood the
impact of the wall is catastrophic. I also remember that there
was a pile of earth on the other side of the wall and I asked,
"What is that?" and they said, "That used to be
the town's rubbish dump, but we are now cut off from the town's
rubbish dump and our rubbish now has to be transported several
kilometres to be dumped". Those are just small but important
examples of the impact of this on people's freedom of movement,
on their livelihood, on the economy of this town which is just
completely encircled. That is the first thing. The second thing
is people's fear and concern is that this creates new facts, new
realities on the ground which may make the political solution
more difficult. Clearly that creates real political problems because
we are talking here about wanting to achieve a viable Palestinian
state. If you get to a situation where you are talking about trying
to join together two or three encircled enclaves it is very hard
to see how that would become a viable Palestinian state. One of
the things that some people are beginning to reflect upon is if
that carries on and then the two state solution is in some difficulty,
what are you left with as an alternative? It is a symptom of the
problem. The economic impact is very considerable, but it is only
a political solution that is going to deal with this because a
political solution would bring an end to the violence and if you
have an end to the violence you have no need for any walls or
any fences.
Q152 Ann Clwyd: Should the UK put
pressure on the Israelis to stop them continuing the building
of the wall or to actually dismantle it?
Hilary Benn: We have made our
position very clear, our concern about the wall, the fact that
we regard it as illegal being built on Palestinian land, but the
wall and the fence continue to be built, that is the fact. All
of those representations have not changed the consequences of
the wall being built. It is only a political solution that in
the end is going to deal with that. The Committee may be rather
bored, and I apologise, by me repeatedly making that point but
it is so clear from our understanding of the history of all of
this, so clear from going to see it, that all of these things
we have talked about are the product of the failure of a political
process to try to find a solution. That is what is going to deliver
the change. If it was just a question of having sufficient pressure
to stop the wall being built and so on, in one sense it would
be a lot easier to deal with, but it is not and that political
solution in the end has to come internally from both sides. That
is the lesson we have learned from other conflicts around the
world, including Northern Ireland. I must confess I found myself
reflecting a lot on the similarities and differences with Northern
Ireland during that visit because they are the only two places
I have been in my life where everything was either one or the
other, this or that, ours or theirs. It is very, very striking.
Q153 Ann Clwyd: Can I ask you some
questions about security. In your written evidence you said: "What
is most needed to reduce poverty is a relaxation of Israeli curfews,
closures and checkpoints, and eventual withdrawal, so the economy
can grow again." The question is how is DFID working to help
the Palestinian Authority build its security apparatus when the
Palestinian Authority is not even allowed to have an operational
police force? In what ways are the Palestinian police able to
provide security to the Palestinian civilian population?
Hilary Benn: In May of this year
we agreed, I think it was, US$1 million mainly for vehicles and
other equipment because one of the things which the Palestinian
security set-up has lacked has been just basic infrastructure
to do the job. That is part of the support that we have given,
not all of it has been spent yet. As I indicated earlier, we had
been in the process of developing a bigger programme of security
sector reform, which is currently on hold because of the difficulties
over the Palestinian Authority cabinet. We have done that precisely
because we recognise that this is a really important piece of
work to build that capacity, that is the premise of your question.
The fact that there had been a multiplicity of security organisations
under the Palestinian Authority set-up has not helped. I think
everybody has been anxious that there should be clear responsibility
for oversight of all of those so that the money that is being
spent on salaries, and on a number of people who are employed,
can be used in the most effective way backed up by the kind of
programme that we have been running as a donor organisation, and
with support for equipment which they need, so we do identify
that as being a particular priority. And what I have described
is the way in which we have been trying to support the development
of that security capacity which the Palestinian Authority wants
and which certainly the Israeli Government wants the Palestinian
Authority to have in order to be more effective in trying to deal
with those who are using violence to undermine the prospects for
a political process.
Q154 Ann Clwyd: Would you say there
was a co-ordinated attempt by donors to put pressure on the Israeli
Government to ease unnecessary restrictions on humanitarian operations,
as clearly those do not constitute a threat to security?
Hilary Benn: There are regular
representations and, of course, a very important part of the Roadmap
process in the first round of commitments that the two parties
entered into was, indeed, the easing of closures and restrictions
of that sort because of the impact they have had on the humanitarian
situation and on the economy. They are very fundamental problems
and until you can address that then it is hard to see how the
humanitarian situation is going to ease and the prospects for
economic improvement are actually going to improve. That is a
point that we continually make, but it is the bedrock on which
the Roadmap process is built. We all hope that if confidence can
be restored in the process then that will be the first thing on
which there can be some movement and progress because if people
see that the political process is beginning to deliver some practical
change on the ground, and that is what people are interested in,
then it builds confidence and people are more prepared to move
on to the next stage. That is what is needed. Unfortunately what
happened in the middle of August undermined the confidence in
the small amount of progress that had been made up until that
point. But we have to try again.
Q155 Ann Clwyd: I was in Jenin last
year and I have to say that was the first time that I have ever
seen humanitarian agencies prevented from going to assist people.
I wonder if you think that there are any circumstances where humanitarian
agencies should be blocked in that way?
Hilary Benn: I too went to Jenin
on the second day where we are providing direct support to the
programme that is rebuilding the houses that were demolished in
the very centre of Jenin and where, of course, one of our staff,
one of our workers, Iain Hook, had been shot and killed in November
of the previous year. I must say that I was very impressed in
Jenin by the purposefulness with which the committees representing
the people whose houses had been demolished were working with
the engineers we had got and those who were funding the actual
rebuilding itself. There was a lot of very lively debate about
whether they should recreate the houses in the street pattern
as it was before the demolitions took place or whether the clearance
that had occurred should be taken as an opportunity to design
something a bit different. It was the kind of discussion that
one would expect in our own constituencies if we had a redevelopment
programme. I thought that was a positive sign. To come back to
the specific question that you asked, it is very important that
those who are providing humanitarian relief and assistance are
able to have access because in the end it is about trying to address
the real problems that people have got and if one takes closures,
for instance, making sure that if people are ill they are able
to get to the nearest hospital without being held up. I had one
story described to me when we were in Qalqilya of circumstances
in which a woman who had got into complications during pregnancy
was held up, and when she did get to hospital she sadly died.
That is a very practical example of a very direct humanitarian
interest. People need that access to go about their daily business,
to visit their relatives and to get access to health care when
they are in need.
Q156 Mr Walter: I would like to follow
up on that point because you have touched on a very important
aspect of this prevention of humanitarian assistance getting to
people. I think there is a perception outside the region that
the fence, the wall, is somehow an international boundary that
roughly runs along the Green Line when quite clearly, because
you saw it and we saw it, it does not do that at all, it stretches
way into the West Bank and is then amplified by the closures and
the effective security cordons that exist around Palestinian areas
to the extent that something like 65% of the West Bank is effectively
a no-go area for Palestinians, it is under Israeli control in
order to protect the security of the settlers. I wanted to just
come back to the point you touched on when you talked about somebody
requiring emergency medical assistance. We saw, or certainly I
saw, several instances of ambulances with their lights flashing,
in emergency mode, at these checkpoints. I raised this in Tel
Aviv with the Israeli Defence Forces and I was told it only happened
rarely, to which I said that I had only spent two days on the
West Bank and I had seen three occasions when an ambulance with
its lights flashing was waiting in a queue whilst we, because
we had diplomatic plates on, went and sailed down the centre,
and any Israeli settler could sail down the centre and go virtually
straight through. We saw an instance, I think it was just south
of Nablus, where there was a UN ambulance, in full UN colours
with UN on it, and we were with the Director of UNRWA who stopped
and asked the driver how long he had been waiting there and he
said he had been there an hour and a half with his lights flashing.
This is inhumane. I just wonder what pressure you feel in DFID's
humanitarian role you can put on the Israeli Government to at
least allow ambulances free movement through those checkpoints?
Hilary Benn: Obviously, as DFID
we do not have a direct dialogue with the Israeli Government because
our work is in the Palestinian Territories. I am very interested
to hear of your experience because it echoes very much the tale
that I was told when I was in Qalqilya. Clearly it is not acceptable
that someone requiring emergency medical treatment is sitting
in an ambulance waiting in a queue for a period of time before
they can be waved through. It is not acceptable but, again, it
is a symptom of the problem and it explains why people feel pretty
desperate, frankly, about the circumstances that they find themselves
in, which should reinforce in everybody the desire to try and
make progress in enabling the peace process to deliver the change
which in the end is going to solve the problems that we saw the
symptoms of when I was there and you on your visit as well. It
is very hard to explain to somebody who has not been there, who
has not experienced and does not live with it, exactly what it
is like when a situation such as you have described occurs in
front of your eyes.
Q157 Mr Battle: Could I return to
two questions. The first one relates to the EU and funding and
the financial tracking requirements because there has been some
criticism of the EU funds and it was suggested to us that donors
are now placing quite a burden on the Palestinian Authority by
the development of its tracking mechanisms. I think there have
to be these tracking mechanisms but how can donors better co-ordinate
their requirements for accountability so there is a clear system
and a clear paper trail, as it were, that is clear to the donor
and makes sure that the funds that are spent are accountably spent
and the Palestinians are part of that without being so over-burdened
by it that it prevents the action?
Hilary Benn: Some people have
raised complaints about the way in which EU assistance has been
used. This has been investigated and none of it has been substantiated
at all, although there is a further independent look at this going
on as we speak, I think. I think that the responsibility that
we have, alongside other donors, goes back to the questions about
co-ordination, to make sure that what we do maximises the practical
support that we can give to the Palestinian Authority and, as
your question indicates, Mr Battle, minimises the burdens that
we place because of separate reporting requirements. I am certainly
alive to that. It was the topic of the conversation I had on the
first evening I was there with a number of the donors. I would
simply say again we have made some progress but we could do more
because capacity is an issue within the Palestinian Authority,
there is no question about that. Through a number of the programmes
that we are undertaking we are trying to build that capacity but
we all have an interest in making sure that we use the support
that we are able to offer in a way which maximises the support
and help that we can give to the Palestinian Authority, although
one has to recognise, as I indicated earlier, that some countries
have different ways of doing things. You will often get people
round the table who say "We must harmonise our efforts"
and there is a lot of nodding of the heads, but the question is
do we do it in practice. It is an issue in relation to support
to the Palestinian Authority, it is an issue in relation to a
lot of other countries in which we work, and you can find some
outstanding examples of co-ordination and harmonisation and you
can find other examples where in practice we are making matters
a bit worse because of the way in which we go about things. That
is why DFID has been pretty consistent in recent years banging
the table about the need to continue to focus on this effort because
if we get it right it means that we get better use and greater
effect of the money which we provide for development.
Q158 Mr Battle: One of the things
that the EU has been good at doing has been documenting damage
to projects. It is quite an unusual situation where development
aid goes in to Gaza Airport, the Palestinian Civil Police Council,
schools, clinics, and then they get damaged or destroyed during
Israeli military incursions. I just wondered, is information about
damage and destruction or loss and wastage fed back to international
donors? Is there anything done to support the owners of the infrastructure
now seeking compensation, for example, from the Israeli authorities?
Has our government ever put in a claim for damages to say, "We
have spent money from our DFID funds and it has been undermined,
if not destroyed, and we have to go and spend it again and we
want the insurance money back for it"? Have any of those
issues been considered?
Hilary Benn: As far as the UK
bilateral assistance is concerned, because we do not tend to engage
in infrastructure projects it has not been a direct issue for
us. But it has been for the European Union because of the projects
that they have done which have been damaged. And the EU does gather
the information. I think I am right in saying there is only one
circumstance in which, as I understand it, the Israeli Government
has paid compensation. Requests are made but compensation is not
given. There are also difficulties because of ownership, who exactly
owns a particular asset, because it may have transferred to the
Palestinian Authority or others. The straight answer is seeking
compensation has not been a very profitable line of activity.
But there has been damage and it is part of the pattern of experience
within the Palestinian Territories, as you will have seen for
yourselves: the demolitions, the example of the factory I alluded
to earlier. It is something I have never experienced anywhere
else.
Q159 Hugh Bayley: Without economic
opportunities and jobs for Palestinians within the Occupied Territories,
it is difficult to see how things can move forward. One of the
things that struck me very forcibly when I was there was to do
with the inefficiency of the aid operation, not because of the
co-ordination between different agencies but because of co-ordination
of policy within particular agencies. For instance, we were told
that UNRWA, and this does not apply just to UNRWA but it is one
example, was importing oil as part of its food aid rations, importing
oil from other countries, and yet I think we were told 80% of
the olive oil produced locally by Palestinians was not sold and
went to waste. We were told the reason that UNRWA buys oil from
abroad is that it is much cheaper, one-quarter of the price, and
they are under an obligation to buy food at the most cost-effective
price. Later on we saw UNRWA running a micro credit scheme, handing
out small loans to Palestinian businesses to create viable enterprises.
Do you not think you could have a rather more joined-up policy
within the donor agencies so that although it may not be the cheapest
way of sourcing oil, if by buying oil locally from Palestinians
one is helping to create economic opportunities, which is also
part of the donor community's mission, would that not make a lot
of sense? Is that something that your Department could look at
and encourage the multilateral agencies to look at too? Just to
give one other example: we were told that because of population
growth the Palestinian Authority needs to build, I think it is,
100 new schools a year and it also needs to build roads within
the Palestinian community and that must use a lot of cement. I
am pretty sure that cement can be bought cheaper from China than
anywhere else but it might just make sense for the donor community
to say, "Look, there is going to be a need, whether under
occupation or as a viable independent Palestinian state, for cement
within this region for many years to come, why do we not invest
in a cement works and produce it?" Could the donor community
be more—
Hilary Benn: Mr Bayley, it seems
to me you make quite a powerful case. As I understand it, UNRWA
is now buying some oil locally but I gladly undertake to go away
and raise with them the two examples that you have given because
it does seem to me that you have identified—if the systems
can permit it, whatever they are—a very sensible way of
trying to develop economic capacity locally, which is what is
desperately needed given the conditions in which people find themselves.
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