Examination of Witnesses (Questions 131-139)
DR. KIM
HOWELLS MP, SIMON
MCDONALD
CMG AND DR.
PETER GOODERHAM
14 MARCH 2007
Q131 Chairman: Good afternoon, Kim,
and your colleagues. We know you all very well. Some of you have
been here very recently, and we remember a useful session that
we had with you during the recess last year.
Let me begin by asking some questions about
the current situation in the Palestinian Authority. When do you
expect our Government to be able to make a decision on whether
to engage with the national unity Government? In that context,
Dr. Gooderham told us that the Government were reflecting on the
situation and would wait and see. He said that it depended upon
the Quartet's policy at that time. Does the Palestinian Government's
programme need to simply reflect the Quartet's principles, or
should it explicitly meet those principles before we engage with
them?
Dr. Howells: Thank you, Mr. Gapes.
It is a pleasure to be here again. There were two big, substantive
questions there. One I can answer very easily by saying that we
are waiting for the Government to be presented, both within the
Palestinian Authority and internationally. There has been lots
of speculation about how that Government will be made up and who
will be in it, and we have certainly maintained our "wait
and see" position, because we do not want to commit ourselves
until we see what is there. That is the policy that President
Mahmoud Abbas wants us to continue, and we have complied with
that. How others in the Quartet will see it is another matter,
but that is our position.
Whether those involved will have moved forward
in the sense that Jack Straw said they ought to so that we could
discern the "direction of travel", as I think he put
it, remains to be seen. We very much hope that they will. At the
moment it is a bit of a big dipper: one moment it looks as though
they are heading that way, but the next they seem to be rejecting
it almost entirely. "Wait and see" is the short answer
to your question.
Q132 Chairman: But on my other question,
there is clearly a difference within the Quartet. The Russians
have taken different positions already. How confident are you
that the Quartet will hold its unity if the programme of the Palestinian
Government does not explicitly meet its requirements?
Dr. Howells: I will let Simon
and Peter come in in a minute, but from my own knowledge of what
has been said at Quartet meetings, I am pretty confident that
the Quartet will hold together, if only because there is no other
show in town at the moment. Of course, we very much hope that
it will. We think that it is the proper basis, if not the only
basis, for moving forward towards a better Middle East peace process
than we currently have, so we are very much in favour of maintaining
that unity.
Dr. Gooderham: I think that
that is right. I presume, Chairman, that you are referring to
Russia as the member of the Quartet that has had contact with
Hamas, including quite recently. It has consistently signed up
to the Quartet statements relating to the formation of a Palestinian
Government, and as far as we understand it accepts the proposition
that the international community should wait and see the shape
of the new Government and how they are comprised, and give them
an opportunity to demonstrate through their actions what their
platform comprises. That is our understanding of what all members
of the Quartet have agreed to.
Q133 Chairman: How important is the
Mecca agreement between Hamas and Fatah? Could there not be a
problem if we, the Quartet, regard the new Government as not going
far enough but at the same time President Abbas is tied to, and
wishes to maintain, the principles of the Mecca agreement?
Dr. Howells: Yes, I think that
that is a fair description of the dilemma that we would find ourselves
in if we could not see that any moves had been made towards recognising
the Quartet principles. We welcome very much the Saudi Arabian
brokering of the Mecca deal, and on the other hand we recognise
the worries that the Americans and the Israelis have about it.
There has been a general welcome within the Middle East for the
deal, and it is a very significant step forward. It is important,
for example, that we do not let the gloomy clouds obliterate the
fact that there is relative peace at the moment in Gaza. That
is a very important step forward and I think that the continuing
ceasefire between Fatah and Hamas is a consequence of that arrangement.
Q134 Chairman: Can I put it to you
that that ceasefire and the agreement in Mecca have only come
about because the Saudis—you have referred specifically
to the Saudi Government and have been positive about their role—have
been prepared to engage not only with Fatah but with Hamas? That
agreement would not have been possible without the Saudi engagement
with Hamas. Is there a contradiction between supporting what the
Saudis are doing to get progress while holding back from our own
engagement to facilitate progress in other areas because we have
a policy of no contact with Hamas?
Dr. Howells: I think, Mr. Gapes,
it might be stating the obvious to say that we are not the Saudi
Government or the Saudis. They have a different standing in the
Middle East from ours and a different attitude towards this problem.
We are glad to see that they have taken on this new diplomatic
initiative. They are very energetic. We have asked them for a
long time to take a more energetic role in trying to help the
peace process along, and they are doing it at the moment. Our
political objectives might ultimately be the same as theirs—two
stable states living alongside each other—but we have a
different way of coming at it. We are glad to see that the Saudis
have taken this initiative.
Q135 Richard Younger-Ross: One of
the Quartet difficulties is that Hamas should recognise Israel.
Can you explore what you would accept as recognition by Hamas
of Israel? Is it explicit or can it be implicit?
Dr. Howells: Well, I would certainly
like to be explicit, of course, but I am sure that in the world
of diplomacy there will be implicit recognitions that, although
it might sound like a contradiction, the rest of the world can
recognise. When that judgment is reached is a moot point. It has
to be recognised by the Israelis; they have to believe that whatever
Hamas says means that Hamas recognises the right of Israel to
exist. Hamas has said lots of contradictory things up until now.
When I was in Ramallah in the autumn, Mahmoud Abbas told me that
he thought that there were three Hamases: a kind of provisional
Hamas in Gaza, which was saying one thing and behaving in a certain
way; people on the West Bank who had been elected to represent
the Palestinian people, who were saying something else; and hard-line
elements in Damascus, who were saying something completely different.
I do not think that it is a simple situation at all. In so many
ways, they have to resolve those differences.
Q136 Richard Younger-Ross: You said
that this has to be acceptable to Israel. Are you saying that
Israel has a veto over the Quartet's policy on this point?
Dr. Howells: Certainly not, but
we cannot force Israel to recognise a meaning that we might put
on the words or anything that Hamas might want to say.
Q137 Richard Younger-Ross: We have
a position where the Iranian President has called for the destruction
of Israel. Most Arab states do not recognise Israel, but we talk
to them, negotiate with them and provide them with aid. We are
asking Hamas to build up further than those other states.
Dr. Howells: No, I do not think
that that is true. You are quite right about the public statements
of most of the states in the Middle East. I sometimes find it
frustrating when I am out there to talk to states, because they
will say things to you privately that they would never say publicly.
They recognise that Israel has the right to exist, and they certainly
do not call for Israel's obliteration, as Ahmadinejad has called
for it. In a sense, that comes back to your original question
about how we interpret the way in which Governments in the Middle
East interpret their relationship with Israel. It is not an easy
thing to judge.
Dr. Gooderham: I would draw a
distinction between recognising the right of Israel to exist,
which is what the Quartet principle is about, and recognising
Israel in a diplomatic sense—in other words, having an embassy,
an ambassador and so on in Tel Aviv. Virtually every Arabic Government
recognises the right of Israel to exist. They accept the proposition
that the solution to this conflict is a two-state solution. It
is really only Iran and Libya that still do not accept the two-state
solution. Therefore, I think that there is a distinction. Hamas
has not yet graduated to the first of those two propositions,
let alone the second.
Q138 Richard Younger-Ross: We talk
to Iran and Syria.
Dr. Howells: We have diplomatic
discussions consistently. We have an embassy in Tehran and one
in Damascus and we talk to them. Very recently, the Prime Minister's
foreign affairs adviser went out to Damascus to speak to the Syrian
President.
Q139 Richard Younger-Ross: Moving
on, the PLO, not Hamas, is charged with representing the Palestinians
in the peace talks. Why does the international community not engage
with Hamas, if not in peace talks, at least in talks about peace?
Dr. Howells: You mean why do we
choose to speak to Fatah or to the PLO rather than Hamas? Fatah
or the PLO's policy is to live in peaceful co-existence with Israel.
That is why we talk to them. That is not Hamas' position. For
example, until very recently, it has been—I do not know
whether it is at this very moment—funding suicide bombers
who have been murdering innocent Israelis. We do not think that
that is an organisation with which we can have those kinds of
discussions.
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