Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-179)
DR. KIM
HOWELLS MP, SIMON
MCDONALD
CMG AND DR.
PETER GOODERHAM
14 MARCH 2007
Q160 Mr. Horam: Thank you very much
for that, but it does not explain the relative reluctance of Israel
to get involved either in what Condoleezza Rice is calling the
endgame negotiations or, indeed, in getting to a clear stage of
the road map.
Simon McDonald: On that, Israelis
always point out that the very first line of the road map calls
for a cessation of hostilities against Israel. So, if you say
that it has not got started, their rejoinder is, "No, because
the Palestinians have not done the very first thing that is required".
Q161 Mr. Horam: A fair point. Finally,
can I tackle this from a different angle? I think that we are
all pleased that the Saudi Government have got more involved in
all of this—Mecca, and so forth—with their own plan,
which I think they first aired in 2002. As I understand it, there
will be a meeting later this month in Riyadh to discuss that Arab
League initiative further. The difficulty over this, from Israel's
point of view, is the right to return. That is the sticking point
for them and if that was dropped—a big thing, but suppose
it were dropped none the less—would the Arab League proposals
then be agreeable to the British Government and to the parties?
Dr. Gooderham: We already welcomed
the Arab League initiative, even in 2002. We thought at the time—
Q162 Mr. Horam: Including a right
of return?
Dr. Gooderham: It has always been
understood that that was one issue that will have to be addressed
in any final status settlement or negotiation. It would be for
the parties themselves to determine how that principle should
be applied. What has been interesting in recent days has been
the signals that the Israeli Government have been sending about
an apparent readiness on their part to look again at that initiative.
Prime Minister Olmert quite recently said things in an interview
suggesting that there were positive elements in the Beirut initiative,
as it is known.
Therefore, there is obviously some speculation
about what might happen at the Arab League summit in Riyadh later
this month. To our knowledge, there is no plan to amend that initiative
or to rewrite it in any way, but we would naturally hope that
the Arab leaders gathering for that meeting would be ready to
endorse it again and to reiterate their support.
Q163 Mr. Horam: What of that, if
there is no possibility of its being accepted by Israel and they
are not prepared to rewrite it?
Dr. Gooderham: I do not know that
there is no possibility of it being accepted by Israel. The sense
that we have is that there might be a greater readiness now on
the part of the Israeli Government to look at the initiative.
Clearly, that is not to suggest that they will swallow it whole,
but they might be ready to recognise it as a significant document
and initiative, and to recognise the desire on the part of a large
number of Governments in the region to see a solution to the conflict
and to be ready, as part of that solution, to recognise Israel
in a diplomatic sense as well as an existential sense.
On the point about Condy Rice and her initiative,
I do not think that the US or anyone else is under any illusion.
As Simon said, the first phase of the road map is still there
and needs to be implemented. Frankly, neither side has implemented
the first phase, but we continue to do what we can to encourage
them to take the steps needed to get beyond the first stage. However,
Condy Rice's idea is that it ought to be possible, at the same
time, to embark on a dialogue—she has been very careful
with her terminology. She has not talked about negotiations and
has avoided the term "final status". Instead, she has
talked about a dialogue between the United States, Israel and
the Palestinian President in order to establish the principles
needed to underpin the so-called political horizon.
The thinking is that if they could get to that
point, they would strengthen significantly President Abbas and
what he stands for—the two-state solution. That would enable
him to demonstrate to the Palestinian people that there is a prospect
of a settlement of the conflict through a dialogue and subsequent
negotiations. That is what Condy Rice has been trying to do, and
we applaud her for her efforts. We think that it is indeed worth
while.
Q164 Mr. Hamilton: I am grateful
to Mr. McDonald for at least correcting the balance and giving
us some of the background. However, Minister, do you agree that
the disengagement plan to which you referred earlier, and to which
Ariel Sharon and his successor, Ehud Olmert, tried to stick—clearly,
it is now dead—resulted from the Palestinians promising
to respond to each concession given by the Israelis with a further
concession and a move towards peace, but never delivering that?
I am sure that Israelis have told you that. They would say, "Every
time we had an agreement with the Palestinian Authority, we kept
our side, but they did not keep theirs. That is why disengagement
started." I agree that disengagement was not a very helpful
policy, and it has clearly now ended.
My other question concerns the road map. We
would like the road map to work. Some would say that not only
have we lost the map, but the vehicle has broken down completely.
It never really got off the ground. It seems to me that the Beirut
proposals from the Arab League and the Geneva accords, which were
track 2 or behind-the-scenes negotiations—whatever you want
to call them—between Yossi Beilin, Yasser Abed Rabbo and
many other players on both sides, form a sounder basis for a final
settlement. Why do the British Government not support or give
more credence to the Geneva accords, even though they were quite
unofficial and were not Government-to-Government?
Dr. Howells: If I can answer the
last question first, I am not sure that we are trying to demean
those efforts at all. We recognise their importance and have played
a part in trying to widen discussions on the road map in order
to incorporate those ideas and initiatives. I think that I said
at the very beginning that we welcome the role that, for example,
Saudi Arabia is now playing.
On disengagement, unilateralism and where they
have come from, that is a very big question. When I have spoken
to Israeli politicians, they certainly describe the failures of
previous undertakings in the way that you did. What surprises
me is that when I speak to Israeli academics, they describe it
in those ways as well. I think that I told this Committee before
about my surprise when I had dinner at an old left-wing kibbutz—I
know that none of us is really left wing anymore—and was
told reluctantly, "Well, life is a lot easier since we built
the barrier." It was depressing, in a way, because it meant
that the old dreams about being able to live side by side, with
Palestinians and Israelis working together, seems now to have
been abandoned. If it has been abandoned unilaterally by the Israelis,
I suspect also that it has grown out of the sense of disillusionment
that Mr. Hamilton described, about the failure of previous undertakings.
I do not think, by the way, that it is only on one side. I think
that it is on two sides.
Q165 Mr. Hamilton: In the end, we
all know what the final status will look like. A clear picture
has been drawn by the Arab League, Geneva and many academics in
Israel and the Palestinian territories of what the final settlement
will look like. The problem is getting there from where we are.
What more can we do?
Dr. Howells: I very much welcome
our Prime Minister's Los Angeles speech, in which he raised the
issue and said, "Look, we've got to do much more about this."
I do not know about you, Mr. Hamilton, or about the experience
of the Committee, but wherever I go, whether in Bangladesh or
Mauritania, the issue comes up constantly. It has a kind of totemic
significance way beyond its importance in terms of the size of
the area, the population or anything else.
It is a cause that we must address, and I think
that we have put a lot of energy into it since the Prime Minister
made his speech in LA. The fact that he made it there was very
important, as it was in America. It was a wake-up call to the
American Administration that they hold the key in so many ways
to being able to move the peace process forward, and that they
should be doing more. I think that they are doing more now.
Q166 Sir John Stanley: Minister,
is it the British Government's policy that Israel should return
to the pre-1967 borders?
Dr. Howells: Broadly it is, yes.
Q167 Sir John Stanley: Are the British
Government exerting every possible pressure on the Israeli Government
to try to achieve that?
Dr. Howells: I will give you an
example. When Simon was the ambassador there, I went out to him
on one of my visits and discovered that our embassy was the only
embassy that was pressing the Israelis on consular issues generated
by the route that the barrier had taken. Lots of other people
say things, but they do very little about it.
Simon and his colleagues, on a day-to-day basis,
were trying to handle cases, putting them to the Israelis and
saying, "You are making life extremely difficult for our
citizens and nationals who happen to be married, for example,
to Palestinians. Imagine what you're doing to the psyche of the
Arab street," to use that cliché again. It is something
that we have pushed them very hard on.
It is made doubly difficult by the fact that
the Israelis talk as well about the border being a legitimate
one that they could live with. I do not hear that so often now,
by the way. I think that they are pretty resolute about incorporating
bits of land that are Palestinian in order to expand settlements
or build a defensive wall around settlements that exist already.
As your question implies, it is a complex issue, but one that
we would return to time and again. We would say that yes, those
are the proper borders and the ones that they should recognise.
Q168 Sir John Stanley: Can you point
to any specific step or agreement that the British Government
have secured with other countries in the last year or so that
endorses the principle that Israel should return to the pre-1967
borders?
Dr. Gooderham: The European Union
regularly issues statements to that effect when Foreign Ministers
meet to discuss the Middle East peace process.
Q169 Sir John Stanley: Yes, I am
aware of discussions about the Middle East peace process but—no
doubt you can help the Committee—I am not aware of specific
initiatives in which Britain, along with the EU, has said that
Israel must return to its pre-'67 borders, achieved in the last
year or so. But I would be delighted to be helped if you can point
to the relevant documentation.[3]
Q170 Mr. Moss: I want to follow up
the debate we have just had and pick up on the Minister's definition
of the barrier and the implications of one or two points that
followed. The Israelis would say that, as a result of Sharon's
decision and the party of Kadima and Olmert's success in the elections,
which was supported by a significant majority in Israel, that
it is a security fence. I have seen it; it is a huge wall in parts
of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, but elsewhere it is a fairly small
fence. The Israelis would argue that as a result of erecting that
fence, the number of incidents involving suicide bombers has been
reduced dramatically, therefore they support it for that reason,
and that reason only.
From what the Minister was saying—I would
like him to confirm it—can I take it that the British Government
believe that by building that line or security fence, the Israelis
have now predetermined their vision of where the border will be
in the future? Or is it their view that the Israelis are still
prepared to negotiate about a final border, and that the fence
is in reality purely a security issue at this juncture?
Dr. Howells: The problem is that
temporary structures can become very long-lasting ones. I find
it all too easy to believe that once a fence or a barrier has
been put up, the chances are that it will remain there for a very
long time, and that is a hindrance to negotiations. We are not
saying to the Israelis, "You shouldn't build a barrier or
a fence." We are saying that it should be along the '67 borders,
along that green line. That is where it should be; it should be
on it or behind it. The incorporation of Palestinian land, as
is recognised by the rest of the world, does nothing to enhance
Israel's reputation as playing fair, and ultimately detracts from
Israel's security, because it becomes a running sore for so much
of the Arab world that another piece of land has been stolen,
that something outside Bethlehem has gone or a part of east Jerusalem
has been cut off from the West Bank. That is a very important
issue not only for the Palestinians, but for a lot of Arabs around
the world.
I can certainly understand why the Israelis
have done it, but I would argue that the route they have chosen
is not the right one. It contradicts and breaks the spirit and
the rule of Security Council resolutions, and moreover it is probably
an incentive, to some elements at least, to think of other ways
of attacking Israel which perhaps we have not seen so far—Qassam
rockets, for example. We are talking about a very small area;
the distance from Jerusalem to the sea is nothing. When I first
went to Israel you could see the Palestinian border when you landed
on the aircraft; it was almost at the other end of the runway.
The Israelis always felt very vulnerable when the border was there.
By the way, the fence is not a fence you or
I might put up at the end of our gardens; it is very sophisticated.
Mr. Moss: I have seen it.
Dr. Howells: It is a very sophisticated
fence. There are a lot of sensors and an access road that runs
alongside it, which enables people to move very quickly if the
security is broken on the fence.
Q171 Chairman: We have to move on.
I want to ask you some questions about Egypt. First, may I ask
for your assessment of how important Egypt is today in the Middle
East peace process?
Dr. Howells: Egypt is as important
as any country in the Middle East and more important than most.
It has a very special relationship with Israel; it has direct
access to Gaza, and it is a powerful spokesman for the Middle
East. In all the meetings that I have been to as part of the EuroMed
Barcelona process, Egypt has been the most vocal, if unofficial,
spokesman for the Arab countries that are represented there. It
is a very important country.
Q172 Chairman: President Mubarak
has been in office for a long time. At the last election, in 2005,
he was re-elected for his fifth six-year term. There were also
parliamentary elections at that time. There seems to have been
a step back from the hopes that people had that Egypt might be
opening up. One academic has suggested that "There is no
prospect of significant political reform in Egypt in the foreseeable
future. It's dead in the water. Western efforts to shape reform
in Egypt have been a fiasco." Would you agree with that?
Dr. Howells: I would agree with
some of it, which might surprise you. Last December, President
Mubarak announced constitutional amendments, some of which we
could recognise as real steps forward towards a more democratic,
open society. Some have been interpreted as a step backwards.
What is extraordinary about Egypt is that the
most progressive elements among the chattering classes, or the
political class, are very worried about the prospect of greater
democracy. They are very worried about the distinct possibility
that the extreme Islamic parties could make great progress if
the elections were freer and fairer, and that the secular state
of Egypt, as it exists at the moment, would come under great threat.
Q173 Chairman: Is that partly as
a reaction to the west, particularly the US? Is there a sense
that the ordinary person in the Arab street is rejecting democracy
as an imposed value and that changes are being forced from outside?
Dr. Howells: No, I do not get
that impression at all. I think that the Egyptians are very keen
on democracy and want more of it, but the political class has
reservations about it. There are political classes all over the
world that have reservations about extending democracy, as we
have seen in the past couple of weeks. The implications of the
debate about democracy in Egypt have to be recognised outside
Egypt: the political class is worried that it could be handing
over the reins of power to religious parties.
Chairman: We shall move on to some other
countries in the region—Lebanon and Syria first of all.
Q174 Mr. Keetch: I suppose that there
is no place for a democracy that produced a result that some people
in the west were not be terribly happy with.
I turn to Lebanon, particularly the appalling
assassination of Rafik Hariri. The UN Security Council and the
Lebanese Government have set up a special tribunal to investigate
the death of the former President, following on from Security
Council resolution 1664. There is a widespread rumour—let
me put it like that; some of us are off to Lebanon and Syria in
a few weeks—that Syria was somehow involved. There will
be an attempt to understand exactly who was involved. If the tribunal
discovers that Syria was directly involved, will we, as a permanent
member of the Security Council, wish to do something about that?
I hate to mention the word "sanctions" again—you
may fear that I will want to impose sanctions on everybody—but
if the fingerprints of the Syrian Administration are on that assassination,
what would you seek to do about it?
Dr. Howells: I do not know what
the status would be of those accused of murder, because that is
what it was. You have only to go to Beirut and you can still see
the hole in the ground where the former Prime Minister was blown
up—along, by the way, with 20-odd other people.
Dr. Gooderham: Yes.
Dr. Howells: It was an horrendous
murder. I have been told that it was one of the biggest ever peacetime
explosions—if you know what I mean by peacetime in Beirut.
It was a massive explosion. The tribunal was set up was because
of the difficulty that the Siniora Government and their predecessor
Government had in trying to conduct any kind of inquiry into the
assassination, the murder, while Syria had such overweening power
in Lebanon; to put it mildly, they were obstructive.
At the time, the international community believed
that Syria's fingerprints were all over that assassination. We
would not want to take any position on that before the tribunal
completes its investigations, but it is important that the tribunal
should be allowed to complete its investigations. What worries
me, and it worries a lot of people, is that Hezbollah is probably
implicated in the assassination; we do not know that for certain,
but there is a good chance that it was—or certainly some
Hezbollah operatives, because they are very good at setting off
roadside bombs and explosions, as our troops know only too well
down in Basra. They decided to do their best to disrupt that investigation
and to ensure that it came to nothing. That is at the heart of
their attempts to destabilise the Siniora Government and to try,
as they see it, to correct the imbalance of the Lebanese constitution,
which gives them a certain proportion of seats in the Lebanese
Parliament. There are some deep and dark forces at work here.
Q175 Mr. Keetch: Let me be quite
clear. If the tribunal were to find conclusively that the fingerprints
of Syria were on the assassination of the former Prime Minister,
we as a permanent member of the Security Council might not press
for but we would certainly be prepared to consider some form of
action against the Syrian Government?
Dr. Howells: I am going to ask
Peter if he can tell me what Security Council resolution 1595
lays down on what should happen to the guilty people.
Dr. Gooderham: It is important
to remember that resolution 1595 established an international
investigative commission. I guess that the commission has been
at work for well over a year or perhaps 18 months. That is proceeding,
and the investigative team's latest report is due to be made this
week to the Security Council in New York. We are not expecting
that it will deliver any bombshells; it will report steady progress,
but it needs to continue the investigations. That is going ahead.
The idea for some time has been that, in addition,
there would need to be a tribunal—a tribunal, as it were,
that was owned by the Lebanese Government and therefore under
Lebanese jurisdiction that would take receipt of whatever evidence
and information the investigative commission has found once it
concludes its investigation. That tribunal would then determine
whether there were individuals who would need to be brought to
justice. In the event that Syrian individuals were among those
that the evidence had brought to light, the understanding is that
they would need to stand trial and be brought to justice under
the terms of the tribunal.
The difficulty is that the tribunal has yet
to be established, because once the Lebanese Government had worked
with the UN, taking advice from it on how best to set up the tribunal,
and once the Government brought that agreement to a decision,
certain members of the Government voiced their opposition to it
and withdrew from the Government, and that is what precipitated
the crisis.
Q176 Sir John Stanley: Is it not
contradictory for the British Government constantly to seek to
defend their interventions in the Middle East, particularly in
Iraq, in terms of the expansion of democracy and at the same time,
as in Lebanon, to refuse to have any dealings with those who are
elected under the democratic process, such as Hezbollah's democratically
elected MPs?
Dr. Howells: In my trips to Lebanon—I
am going out again shortly—I met the Foreign Minister, who
is essentially Hezbollah, is he not?
Dr. Gooderham: He is linked to
Hezbollah, but not actually a member.
Q177 Sir John Stanley: You did not
meet anybody who was a Hezbollah MP, but only someone who was
linked to it. As I understand it, that was a key Foreign Office
distinction.
Dr. Howells: I think that you
will find when you go there, Sir John—I am sure that you
know it already—that definitions and parties are tenuous,
to say the least.
Mr. Keetch: Look at the Lobby
later and see.
Dr. Howells: It is a most extraordinary
political arrangement out there, I think. To say that someone
is clearly Hezbollah or Amal is not easy. I certainly have not
met anyone who openly describes themselves as Hezbollah, but I
was told in no uncertain terms by our embassy out there that "That
guy is Hezbollah."
Q178 Sir John Stanley: Should not
the British Government be more honest than they are, if I may
say so? Should they not state the reality behind their stance,
which is that the British Government are in favour of democracy,
but only providing that the people who are elected are acceptable
to us? That is our position, and why should we not be honest enough
to say that?
Dr. Howells: Because I do not
think it is the truth. We talk to the Government of Prime Minister
Siniora. We are good supporters of them. Frankly, any Government
have to decide who they talk to when it comes to a Government
composed like the Lebanese Government. I am not particularly keen
to go and talk to someone who might be involved in undermining
the democratic process in Lebanon. Hezbollah, as far as I am concerned,
is a puppet organisation run and owned by the Iranians with the
complicity of the Syrians. It did the Syrians' business when the
Syrians, like gangsters, were bleeding that country white while
they occupied it. It is as if the American Government were speaking
to Gerry Adams and not Margaret Thatcher at the height of the
IRA troubles—
Richard Younger-Ross: They were.
Dr. Howells: They were not, as
a matter of fact. Lots of people were, but they were not necessarily
the American Government. It is perfectly acceptable for us to
choose to speak to people who we consider are performing a constructive
part in a democratically elected Government in Lebanon. I am not
going to go out of my way to talk to people who are trying to
subvert the democratic process so that they can enhance the standing
and position of an extremist Islamist organisation that does not
value democracy at all, as far as I can see.
Q179 Sir John Stanley: I have no
difficulty with the refreshingly candid stance that you have given.
That is similar to the policy that the British Government followed
towards Sinn Fein before the real peace process started. To return
to what I said at the beginning, would it not be more candid for
the rest of the British Government to follow in your footsteps,
Minister, and to stop making tub-thumping, highly generalised
claims that all our policies are justified in democratic terms,
when our policy is—entirely defensibly, in my view—that
we are only prepared to support some parties that are democratically
elected, but not all and sundry? Would that not be the honest
thing to say?
Dr. Howells: I hope, Sir John,
that we are saying that. I have found myself in some very difficult
circumstances. For example, at dinners at embassies around the
world I have suddenly discovered that somebody happens to be sitting
next to me who is from the respectable end of a death squad from
somewhere. The ambassador has, with the best will in the world,
invited that person along because he thinks that, under the new
democracy, they will become the new Government. Well, yes, that
is great. I am sure that we should be talking to such people at
some point, but I do not want to talk to them.
Chairman: I would be interested to know
what the diplomatic reaction is to that remark.
3 See Ev 59. Back
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