Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-139)
2 DECEMBER 2003
RT HON
JACK STRAW
MP, MR JOHN
SAWERS AND
MR EDWARD
OAKDEN
Q120 Chairman: So far as you are aware,
the US has no problems of principle in US forces accepting a sovereign
government in Iraq giving orders to US military?
Mr Straw: It is slightly more
complicated than that, and that will be the purpose of the status
of forces agreement. Just as in Afghanistan, which is an independent
sovereign state, the Afghan authorities have accepted the role
of both ISAF, which is a relatively benign one, but also of Operation
Enduring Freedom in the south and east of Afghanistan, which is
a far from benign role where the operational orders are issued
by American commanders. I do not believe this is an insoluble
problem by any means; I think that any Iraqi government—interim
or otherwise—will recognise that getting on top of security
is in their profound interests and that it will require the US
to be there in large numbers (also us to be there in pretty substantial
numbers) and for there to be a unified command of this, and know
that if they are US forces then, simply, their Commander-in-Chief
has to be the President and if they are UK forces their Commander-in-Chief
has to be Her Majesty acting through the Prime Minister and the
Defence Secretary—that is just reality. We can, and have
done before, square these apparent circles.
Chairman: I would like now to turn to
the other major issue in the region, Palestine and Israel.
Q121 Richard Ottaway: Thank you very
much, Chairman. Foreign Secretary, would you agree that if we
could resolve the Israel/Palestine conflict it would go quite
a long way to taking the heat out of international terrorism generally?
Mr Straw: Yes. Just to elaborate,
there is no excuse/justification for the sort of terrorism the
consequences of which I saw in Istanbul on 20/21 November and
with which we have been living for sometime—none whatever.
However, do I understand that there are environments in which
terrorism breeds or terrorism withers? Yes. Do we know, not only
from our own history, that if you get a political process going
then that can reduce not the number of hard-core terrorists (because
I think that is something which is separate from these factors)
but the number of possible supporters for such terrorism? Yes,
of course. Also, it is symbolic, unfortunately—and I resist
the idea of any clash of civilisations—of a wider conflict.
Q122 Richard Ottaway: I may have missed
something. As far as Istanbul is concerned, has this whole Israel/Palestine
conflict been pleaded in support by those who carried out this
bombing?
Mr Straw: I was not suggesting
it had been; I was making the point that there is no justification
for terrorism of any kind, but I was really providing further
and better particulars to answer your point in the affirmative.
Q123 Richard Ottaway: In that case, can
I move on to the point I made to you during the Queen's Speech
Debate, which is the need for third-party intervention to try
and put some beef into resolving the Israel/Palestine conflict?
We need third-party intervention, we need a robust intervention—to
coin a phrase—and for that intervener to have powers. There
is not much sign of that happening at the moment, unless you can
tell us that this is where you think it is going.
Mr Straw: I agree with your analysis
that the more you can get robust intervention by intermediaries
who are accessible to both sides, the better. In fact, the whole
point of the quartet was to provide that degree of mediation and
inter-mediation by an external group—in this case the US,
the UN, the EU and the Russian Federation. That led to the drafting
of the Road Map and its delivery and then to its endorsement at
the end of June. Sadly, what no one was able to do was to prevent
rejectionist terrorist organisations embarking on a strategy deliberately
and literally to blow up the road and to blow up the Road Map
with it. We have been struggling ever since those bombs went off.
The bomb that went off in Jerusalem on 19 August unleashed a series
of events which has made life extremely difficult. We continue
to work for more operational ways in which third parties can play
a part. As I think you will be aware, Mr Ottaway, some of the
security and intelligence agencies—US and UK—have
been involved to a limited degree, and we also provided jail monitors
for the jail in Jericho (I might say, a British-built jail) which
took the people who were holed up inside the Church of the Nativity
in Bethlehem, and that helped to defuse it. Further down the track,
would it be possible for UN or other agencies to be involved?
We certainly do not rule that out, but the issue always is, is
this acceptable to both sides?
Q124 Richard Ottaway: It is not working
at the moment. Are you going to sit and acquiesce on the status
quo?
Mr Straw: I do not acquiesce on
the status quo for a moment, and we are thinking all the time
about ways in which the status quo can be changed. However, if
you are trying to move from the status quo to where you want to
be you have to take account of the political pressures which are
felt by each party. That is the problem. Having put a lot of pressure
on both parties to accept the Road Map and it looking reasonably
optimistic for a period—and it has to be said of Israel
that they did not respond to some lower level, albeit lethal,
provocation which took place up until 19 August—once you
had that huge suicide bomb go off on the 19 August the politics
changed, and we have been, as I say, wrestling with the aftermath
ever since.
Q125 Richard Ottaway: However, you agree
in principle that third-party intervention will be desirable?
Mr Straw: Yes. The proof of that
is that third-party intervention in the form of the quartet worked
with both the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority
to help draft and then deliver the Road Map.
Q126 Richard Ottaway: It is felt by many
that that intervention lacks power at the moment. To take one
illustration, there are no dispute resolution procedures.
Mr Straw: I want to see the most
robust implementation of the plan, but I just say to you—I
do not think we are disagreeing—that if you want a resolution
of the Israel/Palestine dispute, and there is nothing I want more
in terms of all the conflicts throughout the world, then you have
to see more done in respect of the rejectionist terrorist groups,
and that is just a fact. It is a point I make in the House of
Commons often enough and it is a point that is well-understood
by people inside the Palestinian Authority (who are in many ways
as much a victim of these groups as are the Israelis). You have
to do that, and if you are able to do that then I think we can
get the thing back on track. However, I accept, also, as we had
in Northern Ireland, that there were moments, as we know from
our history in the previous 30 years, when there was nothing we
could do politically because the terrorist situation was so bad
and you simply had to get on top of it; there comes a moment when,
although the terrorist situation is still not satisfactory, it
is tolerable enough to get a political process going. That is
what we have to achieve.
Q127 Richard Ottaway: I am not sure I
completely see where you going, but, to move on, do you think
that the United States elections are tying the President's hands?
If so, should the EU be doing more?
Mr Straw: One of the consequences
of democracy is you have elections and you have electoral cycles;
this is not just a fact for the US. However, what makes the US
distinct is that it is the world's only super-power and its elections
are a world event in a way that even elections in this country
are not. Certainly they are not in Europe because they happen
all the time. The EU wants to play a more active part and Javier
Solana the EU High Representative has been very active there.
However, there have been times when the EU has almost been persona
non grata in the eyes of the government of Israel—I
think quite wrongly by the government of Israel—and also,
as I was explaining to Silvan Shalon when we saw him a couple
of weeks ago, I think in Brussels (the Israeli Foreign Minister),
I do not think the government of Israel has helped itself by these
conditions which it has imposed on contact with Arafat, because
it has made life extremely difficult, as I say, for the new EU
representative to do business with either side. I think we have
found a way through that but the problem about the EU's active
involvement is not a lack of will by the EU it is what the Israelis
would say, from their point of view, is a lack of confidence by
the government of Israel in the EU.
Q128 Mr Hamilton: Is the Road Map dead?
Mr Straw: No. Indeed, it was recently
endorsed by the Security Council in Resolution 1515 in very robust
terms—a resolution for which we voted. So it is far from
dead.
Q129 Mr Hamilton: Can I ask you what
our Government's view is of the Geneva Accord—I know a totally
unofficial agreement between activists in both—
Mr Straw: I welcome the Geneva
Accords. We sent two government representatives yesterday for
the signing—Lord Levy and Nick Archer, the head of the relevant
department—and I have high regard both for Yossi Beilin
and for Yasser Abed Rabbo; I think they are two distinguished
figures and very courageous figures who are trying to get their
own informal peace process going, rather shrewdly having recognised
that there was a vacuum to be filled and they could fill it by
proposals for peace rather than for conflict. So we are doing
everything we can to assist and I know that Secretary Powell in
the United States also has spoken on a number of occasions in
very supportive terms of this process. What we hope it may lead
to is some change in the political perspective in Israel and in
the occupied territories.
Q130 Mr Hamilton: As we know—let
me follow on from what you have just said—Israel is the
only true democracy in the region and, therefore, should be a
beacon to all the other countries in the region. Therefore, there
is very little we can do as far as Mr Sharon is concerned; we
have to let the Israeli public deal with that when the time comes.
However, would you agree that two of the problems, two of the
obstacles, to securing more progress on the Road Map and, perhaps,
even incorporating the Geneva Accords, remain Mr Sharon the Prime
Minister of Israel and his hard-line view and, of course, Yasser
Arafat?
Mr Straw: I do not give a running
commentary on the heads of state or government with which we deal
any more than I give a running commentary on every comment that
is made on the other side of the Atlantic. It is for the people
of Israel to decide who their government is and we have to accept
that that is their decision and we work with them, and it is also
for the people of the occupied territories to decide who their
representatives are, and so far they have decided it is Mr Arafat.
Both are realities and we have to work with them.
Q131 Mr Hamilton: Can I just ask you
a question about the fence or the wall? When we were in Israel
we questioned various key figures—Mr Shalon you mentioned
earlier, the Israeli Foreign Minister and one of the senior members
of the Israeli defence forces, a brigadier general—and everybody
we asked about the wall told us "It is not a wall, it is
a fence." Then we were taken to Qalqilya and we saw a wall—and
it is a wall, it is 25 foot high. Would you agree that the construction
of that barrier, which is done for good reason because of the
fear of further suicide bombing, is in itself a further stimulus
to Palestinian anger?
Mr Straw: Let us deal with the
semantic point first. Prisons when I was running them—and
I think they still do—variously have walls or fences round
them, basically depending on whether they are bricks or wire.
They serve exactly the same purpose: to keep people in and keep
people out. The higher they are and tougher they are the better
they are. So I do not think we should worry about whether it is
a wall or a fence; the purpose of this obstacle is—
Q132 Mr Hamilton: Can I just interrupt
you there, because if you are standing by it it is different.
I agree it has the same purpose but you can see through a wire
fence whereas a wall is far more of a statement that you are hemmed
in.
Mr Straw: All I was going to say
was that when I flew to Iraq this time a week ago, we flew over
Israel and the occupied territories—and in a military `plane
flying quite low. I was looking at the line of the wall and if
you do that, it is shocking on the ground and it is also shocking
from the air when you see a whole Arab town completely encircled
by the wall or fence. Our position is, as I say to the House of
Commons often enough, that any sovereign state is entitled to
have a wall or fence delineating and protecting their international
border from the territory the other side of that border. That
is not an issue; the issue is a separate one which is about when
such a wall or a fence takes other people's territory or other
people's rights as well—and that is the objection to this
wall or fence. Of course I understand, and everybody understands,
why the wall or fence has been built; it has been based on the
experience of the Israelis in respect of Gaza. They say "We
have had no suicide bombers from Gaza, QED therefore we should
have a wall round relevant parts of the occupied territories and
suicide bombers from there." It is also the subject of quite
an interesting history inside Israel, again as you will know,
because it was the left which proposed a wall and Mr Sharon who,
for quite a long time, opposed having a wall. It is also just
a fact that today although the Israelis are famously argumentative
about most things, they are relatively united about this wall.
There we are. We are very concerned about it, and Mr Chaplin (who
has now left) has just returned from spending a week in Israel
and the occupied territories and has been to see both sides of
the same part of the wall and talked to people about their perceptions
on either side; he talked to Palestinians about their concerns
that this was day-by-day restricting their ability to grow their
horticultural produce and sell it, leading to further aggravation
of their life. Yes, there is a gate but it is only open for very
limited periods of the day, leading to them being unable to irrigate
their tomatoes and so on. Strategically, they are very worried
that it could lead to an end of the two state solution. Again,
Mr Hamilton, you know that the Israelis say "We had it all
in the Lebanon and we had it all between us and Jordan and us
and Egypt and when necessary we got rid of it". So I understand
the Israelis' point of view, but I happen to think that the wall
on this route in this way is unhelpful to a strategic settlement.
Q133 Mr Hamilton: It is where it is rather
than the fact of the wall, as you say.
Mr Straw: Yes, where it is, sure.
Q134 Mr Hamilton: Because it seems the
Labour Party, when we saw Mr Peres, is in favour of the wall,
the fence, it is just the fact it is not on the Green Line.
Mr Straw: If it were on the Green
Line, it would be extremely difficult to argue—well, I would
not argue with it, why should you.
Q135 Mr Maples: Foreign Secretary, it
seems to me that the intrinsic rights and wrongs, the amount of
damage being done, the number of people being killed in this dispute,
is, in the context of the other things happening in the world,
very high on the list. The reason it is high on the list is because
it bedevils the West's relationship with the Arab and Islamic
worlds. Whether that is right or wrong, it does that, and we all
know that and you have said as much in your answer to Mr Ottaway.
Therefore, it seems to me, we have to be far more urgent about
this than we are being and be far more proactive, and you come
back to saying, "Well, the parties have to agree." I
want to put two propositions to you. One is, if you really think
the Road Map has no life left in it—and if you honestly
in your heart think it has, why do you think it has, because I
would be amazed, it is on life support at best—the only
way, I put to you, it is going to work is if the United States
is willing to put into the region a very, very senior official
who is known to speak for the President, and hopefully for the
rest of the quartet too, who will sit in there and make things
happen. Because neither side has taken even the first step. The
first step to be taken was for the Israelis to dismantle settlement
activity since 9 March last year and for the Palestinian Authority
to put some curbs on terrorist activity. Neither has taken the
first step down that road at all. I put it to you, they are not
going to unless somebody else, an American of Cabinet rank, is
in there making them do it.
Mr Straw: Mr Maples, if you are
saying that the more intensively the international community and
particularly the US engages the more likely there is to be a positive
result, yes, I accept that in principle.
Q136 Mr Maples: I am putting a different
proposition to you, which is that if we do not do that, it is
dead.
Mr Straw: I do not think it is
dead. I accept the gravamen of your position but I also add the
caveat which I have entered about the effect of rejectionist terrorism
and what happened on 19 August, and even if you had somebody of
Cabinet rank from the US Government with a direct line to the
President, if the rejectionist terrorists were not controlled
and they inflicted further outrages on the Israeli population,
the political effect, especially because Israel is a democracy,
on the Israeli politique would be such as to render any idea of
progress nugatory for quite a period.
Q137 Mr Maples: I want to put another
point to you but when we were in Israel I am not sure that was
the impression we got at all. I think a great many people think
Sharon's strategy of dealing with the situation is not working
and the "get tough, no negotiations", which is essentially
what it has been, is not working and we have seen what has happened
in Geneva this last week. I want to put to you an alternative,
something I have put to you several times before, and I keep hoping
I am going to find you have moved on it. We all know what the
solution to this problem is going to be, it is going to be a two-state
solution, we know all the terms of it, they were virtually agreed
at Taba, and I put it to you again as I have done in the past,
if we really are serious about solving this and we cannot get
real life into the Road Map and real progress—because after
all we are meant to be in stage two by now and stage three by
the middle of next year and we have not even got the first yard
down the track—I suggest it is time for the international
community to put a solution to this problem in a mandatory United
Nations Security Council Resolution and seek to impose it. Then
at least these ridiculous alibis which both sides have of never
talking to the other side about something because something else
has happened would be out of the way. They would know that is
the deal, we are very willing to help them enforce it, we are
not going to put an army in there to make them do it but will
put money, advice, security forces, peace-keepers, but that is
the deal, and we would cut through all this nonsense.
Mr Straw: It is an attractive
idea. I do not rule it out, let me say, Mr Maples, just to provide
you with comfort, but it does require there to be a UN Security
Council Resolution with no vetoes. I do not think we are quite
in a position to achieve that just yet.
Q138 Mr Maples: It would be nice to know
it was perhaps something we were working towards.
Mr Straw: Yes, I agree. It is
something I think about a lot, not least prompted—genuinely
prompted—by your interventions and those of the Committee.
Sir John Stanley: I think you will have
detected, Foreign Secretary, in the discussions you have had with
several members of the Committee that we are all very conscious
that you in your world are operating in a completely different
environment on this issue of the Road Map from what is actually
happening on the ground. When you bravely say to my colleague,
Fabian Hamilton, the Road Map is alive and well, et cetera, et
cetera, yes, I have no doubt in the Security Council there is
endless scope for debate and resolutions and diplomatic manoeuvring,
et cetera, et cetera, but for those of us who have actually had
the benefit of seeing what is on the ground, talking to people
who are living with it, when you ask yourself, "Is there
any remote possibility of the present Israeli Government taking
down those sections of the wall which are inside the Occupied
Territories", the answer seems to be an emphatic no, because
those areas are being expanded. When you ask the question, "Is
the Israeli Government going to remove all the Israeli settlements
in the Occupied Territories, and the outposts which are still
being accumulated", the answer seems to be an absolute emphatic
no. Are they going to take down the continuing programme of military
and civil road-building which is slicing through the Occupied
Territories, coupled with all the barriers and restrictions which
are going on, and you ask yourself, "Is there any conceivable
way this is going to end up with a viable . . .", and that
is the word you or the Prime Minister used, ". . . Palestinian
State", the answer is, "It is inconceivable that a viable
Palestinian State can emerge." That is why we round the Committee
are putting it to you. On the ground it looks absolutely dead
in the water.
Q139 Chairman: Absolutely.
Mr Straw: I did not say it was
alive and well, but I did say it was not dead and I did say its
terms have recently been endorsed. The situation is frustrating,
Sir John, but all I invite you to do is not to take your frustration
out on me or the British Government, because we are on the same
side and wish to see a solution. To vent your frustration, you
should start first, and I am sorry to repeat this but you have
to face up to this as a reality, on those rejectionist terrorist
groups in Hamas and Islamic Jihad who set about destroying the
Road Map. And they did. A lot has followed from that. If we had
had a terrorist-free environment from the end of June, when things
were coming together, one could say that the Road Map was alive
and well and was being implemented. That is the reality. In Northern
Ireland, at good times, leaving aside the last month, of the implementation
of the Good Friday Agreement, if we had had a lot of Omaghs the
process would have run into the ground. That is just political
reality.
|
