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7.43 pm
Mr. Robert Marshall-Andrews (Medway) (Lab): It is a privilege, as always, to follow the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell), and a privilege to be given the opportunity to spend 12 minutes reflecting, if I may, on the greatest British failure of foreign policy for 40 years. There are, unhappily, many worthy candidates for that particular plinth in our political pantheon: Iraq, certainly; Afghanistan, perhaps. But the greatest failure by a long political street is our policy in the past 40 years towards Palestine and the state of Israel.
That policy has not received, of course, the attention that has been given to Afghanistan and to Iraq, and British soldiers do not daily die on the sand in Palestine. That is to be understood, but that being said, there is no greater cause in the world than exists in Palestine for terrorism-for asymmetric conflict; and, there is no greater alibi or apology for terrorism than exists in Palestine. It does not exist in Afghanistan. The motivation for terrorism is nowhere better exemplified than in Palestine and in the state of Israel, and the so-called legitimacy that those who are part of the asymmetric conflict claim is within Palestine. There is no hope for us in confronting the fundamentalism that lies at the root of terror until we apply ourselves to the defeat of the grotesque injustice that takes place in the middle east.
I say straight away that I, myself, have been slow to anger on this issue. There are two reasons why. First, most of my political preoccupation over the past 13 years has been with trying to do something about the erosion of civil liberties in my own country, let alone within the middle east. That erosion has been steady and, as you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, a preoccupation with which I have wearied the House on a number of occasions.
Secondly, my generation has always had a natural sympathy and empathy with the state of Israel-always. Whatever its geographical legitimacy, it is a state that was born within my lifetime and born out of indescribable suffering. There has always been a belief in my generation that the state of Israel should be supported, if nothing else, for that reason, but it needs to be said now that, for me and for many of my generation, that empathy is now at an end. That partiality which was natural within international corridors is now finished. Israel must now be judged without partiality as any other nation state within the community of nations, and, if the acts that it commits make it an international pariah, that is precisely how it must be judged.
The anger that has come to me and many other people is not irrational; it is founded in report after report from the most reliable and illustrious of sources, some of them within Israel itself. As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) said, brave people in Israel are responsible for that research and those reports. It has come from the United Nations Office for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and it has come, finally, in 575 pages of indictment from Goldstone-indictment of criminal carnage and devastation that I shall come to in a moment.
Jeremy Corbyn: Does my hon. and learned Friend not find it absolutely extraordinary that although somebody with the prestige of Judge Goldstone wrote such a comprehensive, detailed and well-evaluated report, the British Government abstained or did not participate in the vote at the UN Human Rights Council, and that, apparently, there is a move to try to veto the whole process at the UN Security Council?
Mr. Marshall-Andrews: Yes, I do, and I found the excuse for that situation-that the wording of the resolution was partial-to be deeply unsatisfactory and unmoving. The truth is that the debate was about Goldstone and everyone knew that-Goldstone being one of the most respected and distinguished South African judges, with an extremely long pedigree of dealing with matters of civil liberties within his own country and outside it.
The hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) is no longer in his seat, and I was sorry that he would not take my intervention because I wanted to tell him how much I was going to disagree with him. However, with due deference to him, I must say that to speak for 12 minutes without once mentioning the Goldstone report-the 575 pages of the Goldstone report, which is now the central issue in respect of that region-showed in one's view of the middle east a selectivity that I find difficult to comprehend.
I turn now to factual matters. There is a plethora-a litany-of them, but I simply choose 10, all firmly grounded in the sources to which I have referred, and all plain and unassailable facts. On the west bank, there are now 285,000 illegal settlers. There are 200,000 in East Jerusalem, and that does not account for the 200,000 illegal settlers who are not in formal settlements. There are 75,000 housing units planned on the west bank-illegally-as we speak. That is not a resettlement of people, or a diaspora of Britons in the Dordogne; it is the illegal colonisation of another's land. That is the first matter I wanted to mention.
Secondly, some 60 per cent. of the west bank is controlled by Israel, much of which is in the so-called area C, which is completely controlled-it is a military zone-along the Jordan river. Some 9.3 per cent. of the land in the west bank is now settled, and there are now 120 unofficial outposts, in which 200,000 people live. Some 400 km of the projected 723 km barrier between these two so-called countries has been completed, and 12 per cent. of the west bank is encompassed illegally within it. Very nearly 500,000 Palestinians are in the barrier's path and are encompassed or separated from their land as a result. There are 60-not 30, but 60-permanent checkpoints on the west bank. There has been some alleviation, in that they are not always manned now. However, as a riposte to that, there are
now 65 flying checkpoints that can be put into effect anywhere. Palestinians are subjected to the added indignity of not knowing where they are going to be stopped at any given time.
Thirdly, in East Jerusalem, 420 Palestinian houses have been demolished since 2004.
Then we come to the statistics of deprivation. Infant mortality in Israel is 4.2 per 1,000, while on the west bank it is 15.9 per 1,000; in Gaza, it is 18.35 per 1,000. The per capita GDP of Israel is $28,000, while in neighbouring Palestine, it is $2,900. Unemployment in Israel is 6.1 per cent., while on the west bank it is 16 per cent. In Gaza it is 41 per cent.; that accounts for the fact that 70 per cent. of people in Gaza live below the US poverty level and 79 per cent. are in deep poverty.
Some 150,000 Palestinians have no running water and 80 per cent. of the water they have is below World Health Organisation standards. That is because the treatment plants were destroyed, almost certainly deliberately, during the invasion of Gaza. As a result of the destruction of the sewage plants, 7 million litres of untreated sewage is poured every day into the sea off Gaza. Furthermore, the width of that sea is now constricted to 3 km, rather than the 20 km agreed at Oslo.
I have not even got to Goldstone. The Goldstone report is an enormous indictment of individual acts of cruelty and acts that are undoubtedly crimes against humanity and war crimes. There was deliberate killing of civilians; there were 1,440 deaths in Gaza during the invasion in December last year. Some 431 of those who died were children and 114 were women. White phosphorous is an unassailable fact recorded by the United Nations, which knows that it was used against its own installations; 57 were hit during the invasion of Gaza. The only flour mill operating in Gaza was destroyed on 9 January in an absolutely deliberate and premeditated attack. Chicken farms, on which the people of Gaza overwhelmingly rely for their protein, were destroyed. Some 100,000 birds were destroyed; 60 per cent. of the agricultural land was rendered useless. Some 17 per cent. of the orchards were destroyed.
That is the cost of the Israeli invasion of Gaza. Goldstone is unequivocal in his conclusion that there were serious and repeated breaches of the fourth Geneva convention of 1949 and its first protocol. This is not just another piece of foreign policy, but the crucible of injustice. Without a remedy for that injustice, we will never create international peace or a suitable antidote to international terrorism.
There is no doubt that in giving vent to this anger, people such as me will be accused of partiality-but Israel is a state, and a prosperous one. It is supported by the most prosperous state and some of the most prosperous institutions in the world. If Israel craves the priceless advantage of international statehood among democratic nations, it must be treated as a state and behave like a state. The Palestinians have no such state; they are denied one. If we deny people a state, our complaint is hollow that their actions do not live up to the status they have been denied.
As a Member of Parliament and a lawyer, I simply say this: the offences committed, particularly in Gaza, are international offences against the fourth Geneva convention and its protocol. In this country we are signatories to the convention and under the Geneva
Conventions Act 1957 and the Geneva Conventions (Amendment) Act 1995 we have not only a right but a duty to track down, investigate and prosecute those in breach of the convention. We have a duty to do that here. I say now, in so far as one has any voice at all, that those responsible for those acts in Israel and Palestine can no longer travel safely, because internationally, in all the countries that have signed the convention, they are liable to the prosecution that they deserve.
7.56 pm
Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews); as usual, he has made his points with great clarity and what he has said has been of great interest.
I am afraid that I am going to return to the issue of Afghanistan. That will come as no surprise to the Secretary of State for Defence or anyone on these Benches. The focus of my concern is a speech that I heard on Remembrance day in my constituency. It was made by a member of the Royal British Legion, an elderly gentleman who had fought in the second world war. He was wearing the Africa Star and the Italy Star. He spoke with great pride about the amount of money that the Royal British Legion had raised in the previous few weeks, but went on to say how bitterly opposed he was to the war in Afghanistan. He did not understand the cause behind it or the reason for our troops dying there. I spoke to him afterwards. I said that he had fought tyranny-he had the medals to prove it-and that he had been content to stand against a dictator and risk his life. He said, "Yes, but that was a just war. It was a proper, real war. This is a waste of life." I challenged him and asked him to explain. He said that he had heard no proper reasons why our men and women were dying in Afghanistan.
That is the point that I make to the Secretary of State for Defence. A refreshing amount of understanding has been displayed tonight and Pakistan has been mentioned by almost everyone who has spoken, with one or two notable exceptions. However, the Government have made a particularly poor job of explaining why our men and women are fighting in Afghanistan. There are some cracking arguments that, if made articulately, properly and frequently, might make my friend from the Royal British Legion change his views.
First and foremost, my friend, like many in the Chamber, advocates withdrawal. But we are where we are, whether we agree with the intervention in 2001 or the expedition to Helmand. Those things are not the point; we are where we are. If we were to withdraw now, what would be the consequences? First and foremost, the United States would simply carry on with the heavy lifting and continue the fight. We paid a price for our behaviour when the Spanish withdrew from Najaf, Iraq, in 2005. We agreed, although not very obviously or publicly, to plug the so-called "Spanish gap" of 3,000 men, but we never did. We did not honour the agreement. The United States forces had to do it and they finally had to pull the fat out of the fire in Basra.
We cannot carry on letting down our allies; that would be quite wrong for a number of reasons. First, there is our moral duty. Secondly, it would fracture an
alliance. Thirdly, after what I consider to be the Prime Minister's ill thought-through statement that we would adopt a timetable for our withdrawal from Afghanistan-not a series of goals or achievements, or a graduated response, but a timetable-within half an hour al-Qaeda was on the wires with its statement claiming that this was the beginning of the end. It said that the second major partner in the alliance, Britain, had signalled the fact that it would no longer support the US and that, to all intents and purposes, it was defeated. We cannot do that.
The Government's arguments for the most part-although not tonight, because we have heard some excellent speeches from Labour Members-have been made very badly. For instance, several different reasons have been manifested for why we are in Afghanistan. The most recent is that conventional military operations there are designed to keep the streets of Great Britain clear of terrorism and terrorists. The Secretary of State knows that I am the Chairman of the Counter-Terrorism Sub-Committee, so I know that that is an argument, but I do not believe that it is the prime linchpin of the Government's reasons for our conventional operations in Afghanistan. Of course we must prevent that country and others from falling back into a state of disrepair and becoming a failed state where terrorism can prosper, but the attacks on 7/7 and the failed attacks on 21/7 were not led by Afghans or by men trained in Afghanistan. The former were led by Yorkshire men, trained in the Lake district and Pakistan, and the latter by a man of north African origin living in north London who had also been trained in Pakistan and this country. The several dozen arrests carried out after the aircraft plot of August 2006 were all of British nationals, with two exceptions. They had not trained in Afghanistan, but in Pakistan. That surely is the point.
I fail to understand why the BBC so often presents two different pieces of news, the first about Afghanistan, usually bad news, then-several items down the news-something on Pakistan. But it is the same issue, the same war being fought against the same, albeit slightly different enemies and albeit on two different fronts. Would my constituent who fought in the second world war distinguish Anzio and Normandy? Of course he would not-it was the same war against a common enemy on different fronts. The Government must start to make the argument much more coherently that the reason that our troops are in Afghanistan is not just to support the Government of that country or just to bring it back to some form of rationality, but to carry on, on a second front, the war that threatens to engulf the whole region, from the borders of Russia to the borders of Iran. We know that Russia is nuclear-tipped and we believe Iran to be also. Pakistan also has a nuclear arsenal that, should it fall into the hands of our enemies, however likely or unlikely that is, would-as even the meanest intelligence must comprehend-threaten to increase the sad, but relatively modest number of injured and dead from terrorism in this country. Plunging that region into nuclear-tipped chaos would create a problem with which we could not live.
Paul Flynn: Is the hon. Gentleman in favour of sending British forces into Pakistan?
Patrick Mercer:
Pakistan is a sovereign country. British and allied forces are already involved on the borders of Pakistan. If Pakistan were to require our help, that is
something that I would consider, but let us be in no doubt that the core of this problem lies in Pakistan. Watch the news and see what is happening there every day. The rebels are not just challenging troops in the field: they are attacking at the heart of that country, taking on Government and defence establishments and inflicting enormous casualties. If we continue to divide these two parts of the war, we miss the essence of what the Taliban, backed by al-Qaeda, are trying to do.
I ask the Government to read the history books. When we went into Helmand in 2006 I made a speech, as did colleagues, asking the Government not to look only at the British history, but at what happened to the Soviets in that area and others on the border. We are inviting the sort of war in which the Soviets became involved-and the sort of casualties that they suffered. They were prescient words. Those who write off British policy in Afghanistan in the 19th and 20th centuries as a universal failure are wrong. Yes, the first expedition in 1842 was a failure, 1919 was probably a score-draw, but 1878-80-in the parameters of the time-was a success. In 1880, there were two different theatres, but there was fighting between Gereshk and the Helmand river against the Talibs and the Ghazis-for which read Taliban and al-Qaeda, as they were the religious extremists of the time. It was by the same regiments against the same tribesmen, in a very similar region, with a political backdrop that is remarkably similar. A Government fell in 1880 over what happened in Afghanistan. We thought that we had got things right a couple of years before, but too quick a withdrawal led to the disaster of the battle of Maiwand in July 1880 and to other problems that were only solved finally by military might.
Let us also be clear that if we displace terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan, as we have heard tonight, there are many other places where al-Qaeda will spring up. I am not concerned so much about the Taliban, who have no desire to fight in this country or to kill people inside our borders. They are a nationalistic organisation that we can defeat, not so much militarily, but in the same way as we did in the 1880s and 1920s-by boxing clever and peeling people away from the idealists.
I also ask the Secretary of State to look at the problem of Somalia. What we think we may have got on top of in Iraq, and what we are struggling to contain in Afghanistan, has been by no means solved in Somalia. I ask him to look especially carefully at the naval resources that he is able to commit to the waters off the horn of Africa, and to dedicate resources there to prevent Somalia from developing into the sore-the hotspot, the disgrace-that Iraq did and Afghanistan is becoming.
8.8 pm
Mr. David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab):
Earlier tonight we heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) about the situation in Iraq. She made the point that, for the first time in many years, the word "Iraq" was not mentioned in the Queen's Speech. However, the Queen did say that her Government want to work for peace in the middle east, and it is impossible to have any real peace there without involving Iraq. In recent discussions that I had as chair of the Labour Friends of Iraq with the Islamic Dawa party, it said that it believes that Iraq can be a beacon for democracy, freedom and moderation in the middle east instead of suffering the tyrannies of poverty, backwardness
and extremism in what is still one of the most prosperous parts of the world. The first part of my speech will ask what our Government intend to do to try to continue to improve the situation in Iraq, now that we no longer have troops on the ground to any great extent.
One of the key issues that I want to raise is something that has been a running sore for more than four years-the imposition of restrictions on the freedoms of the trade union movement in Iraq. In August 2005, the interim Iraqi Government imposed restrictions on the trade union movement in Iraq, seized its assets and reintroduced rules that said that working in the public sector, which is a huge part of the Iraqi economy, is not compatible with trade union membership. If Iraq wants to pretend to be a democracy and behave like a democracy, it has to accept that free, democratic and independent trade unions must be allowed to exist, something that trade unions in this country, our Government and the International Labour Organisation have all supported. We need to emphasise that, so I hope that the Government take that point on board.
We also heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley about the upcoming elections. They are due in January, but there are doubts about whether they will go ahead. They should go ahead, and one of the key things that we could is to sit down with the Iraqi Government and the various parties and people across Iraq and say, "What can we do to help you ensure that these elections go ahead?"
We have a strong and close relationship with the Kurds in Iraq. They are clear that we saved them from effectively being wiped off the face of the earth. I am proud to be the secretary of the all-party group on the Kurdistan region in Iraq. The Kurds fear that the Government in Iraq are retreating into a central, rather than a federal state. The Kurdistan region of Iraq is struggling to get its people to see that their future lies in a federal Iraq. If the Government in Iraq do not realise that and do not work with the Kurds, they could well experience even more problems than they have recently.
Last week a friend of mine, Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the High Representative to the United Kingdom from the Kurdistan Government in Iraq, wrote a passionate article in my regional newspaper, the Newcastle Journal. She rightly paid tribute to the fallen British soldiers and expressed her
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