MPs condemn Israel for Gaza ‘purgatory’

A House of Commons debate on the humanitarian situation in Gaza last Wednesday led to probably the strongest condemnation of Israel that has ever been heard in Parliament – with three of the House of Commons’ most senior backbenchers leading the charge.
The debate was introduced by Sir Tony Baldry, the Conservative MP for Banbury, who recalled returning home after a visit to Gaza and telling his children that he had been to “hell” and he could not imagine a “purgatory” of such total hopelessness as Gaza.
He was backed up by Sir Gerald Kaufman, Labour MP for Manchester Gorton, who accused Israelis of sitting in their cafes in Tel Aviv and not giving a damn about their fellow human beings in Gaza just half an hour away.
The international community would have to take action and it would have to be imposed on the Israelis, “otherwise hell will break loose”.
But the most telling criticism came from Sir Edward Leigh, Conservative MP for Gainsborough, who declared himself a strong supporter of Israel:
“By all means, if someone is attacked, they should reply strongly in military terms, but not punish a whole people and reduce them to utter poverty and destitution.
“I say this as a strong supporter of the state of Israel, but there is a real danger that more and more people in the world believe that a people who were formerly oppressed are now becoming the oppressors, and that the state of Israel is thereby losing its soul.”
Of 15 speakers the only defence of the Israeli government came from the chairman of Conservative Friends of Israel, James Clappison, who blamed Hamas for the plight of the Gazans.
But Sir Tony Baldry told him there would never be an end to the tragedy of Gaza so long as he and others like him remained deaf to the clear advice of international lawyers that collective punishment of the people of Gaza is illegitimate.

DfID questions January 22nd 2014 : Column 280

Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab): What assessment she has made of the extent to which the amount of food, medical supplies and fuel that is entering Gaza meets the needs of the population.

Minister of State Alan Duncan: The collapse in the supply of fuel and medical supplies entering Gaza in recent months and the rising price of food are exacerbating the already precarious humanitarian situation caused by restrictions on the movement of goods and people and the devastation of the winter storms.

Nia Griffith: The Minister will know that there are severe drug shortages in Gaza, leading to problems with the provision of proper emergency care. What is his Department doing to ensure that the Palestinians get better, more timely access to the health care that they need?

Mr Duncan: She is absolutely right. I was in the Palestinian territories last week and I spoke directly to a number of people in Gaza. The shortage of drugs is a serious issue, and that has been the case since about 2007. DFID is supporting the UN access co-ordination unit to work with the World Health Organisation, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the agencies to help to facilitate the transfer of medical equipment and supplies, and patient referrals, in and out of Gaza.

Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab): Someone who did much to draw attention to the plight of the people living in Gaza, and who also represented Labour Friends of Palestine in the Gaza marathon two years ago and in the Bethlehem marathon, was Del Singh. He was killed last weekend in the attack on a restaurant in Kabul. Will the Minister join me in remembering Del Singh, and does he agree that Del will best be remembered by all of us redoubling our efforts to bring an end to the blockade of Gaza?

Mr Duncan: I wholly endorse what the Member says. We offer our condolences and full sympathy following Del Singh’s death. It would be a tribute to him if we were all to raise the issue of the humanitarian challenge now facing Gaza. It is no exaggeration to say that, come the autumn, Gaza could be without food, without power and without clean water. One UN report predicts that it could become an unliveable place, meaning that it risks becoming unfit for human habitation.

Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con): I welcome the Minister’s forthcoming talks with the Egyptian Government. Will he impress on them that, while we support the security crackdown in Sinai, it is important that they should make suitable provision for humanitarian assistance to cross the Egypt-Gaza border?

Mr Duncan: I understand what the Member is saying, but at the moment those borders are closed. Under international law and other obligations, primary responsibility rests with the occupying power, and it is to that end that we will continue to work closely with Israel in an attempt to alleviate the humanitarian pressure that Gaza currently faces.

FCO written question:

Mr Brazier: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment the Government has made of the effect of Israeli blockades of raw materials on the Gaza economy; and what representations the Government has made to the government of Israel regarding that country’s blockade of Gaza. [181892]

Hugh Robertson: We consistently call for relaxation of the Israeli movement and access restrictions that have been estimated as costing the Palestinian economy up to 85% of its Gross Domestic Product every year. As part of this, we are urging Israel to ease its restrictions on Gaza on the import of commercial construction materials.

MPs who are members of CFI or LFI will be provided with possible one-line interventions to make during speeches on Gaza.  Here are some suggested rebuttals:

 

 

Gaza becoming ‘unfit for human habitation’

MPs’ chance to press for action on Gaza humanitarian crisis

Debate at 2.30-4 pm Wed 5th February

MPs will have a chance to debate the deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza when Conservative MP Sir Tony Baldry introduces a 90-minute debate on Gaza on Wednesday.

The cause of the crisis is the Israeli blockade of Gaza, but this has been exacerbated in recent months by the winter storm and the closure of tunnels to turn the long-running humanitarian crisis into a disaster.

Aid minister Alan Duncan and Middle East minister Hugh Robertson have both visited Palestine recently and staked out a more robust position on Gaza.  Alan Duncan warned that Gaza  could become ‘unliveable’ by the autumn with no food, power or clean water and could soon be ‘unfit for human habitation’.

Hugh Robertson pointed out recently that the Israeli blockade of Gaza and occupation of the West Bank cost the Palestinian economy 85% of its Gross Domestic Product every year – and urged Israel to relax its ban on building material imports to Gaza.

If the talks break up at the end of April without an agreement, as seems likely, the ministers will need to back up their words with actions that will persuade the Israelis to lift the blockade and let imports and exports flow freely in and out of Gaza again.

Netanyahu will try to blame the Egyptians for the crisis, but this is disingenuous. Egypt has only a passenger crossing into Gaza and has been forced by US and Israeli pressure to refuse access to goods.

As Alan Duncan pointed out in the Commons last year, citing an IMF report, the blockade and other restrictions imposed by the Israelis cost the Palestinians 78% of their GDP or $6.3 billion a year. Without the restrictions, Palestine would no longer be dependent on aid.

The Israelis promised under the Oslo Accords to build a ‘land bridge’, a secure road to connect Gaza to the West Bank, which would allow the Gazans to restart their mothballed factories and export to their natural market, only 25 miles away, but Netanyahu has blocked it.

Instead the Israelis have continued to control Gaza’s borders, ports, airspace, passports and telecommunications and maintain constant surveillance from drones and helicopters. They still occupy Gaza in every way except boots on the ground.

Here are useful things to read:

Latest UN reports on Gaza

UN weekly report with update to January 27th 2014> th 2014> 

UN Humanitarian Monitor October 2013 

UN OCHA Five Years of Blockade, June 2012>

Parliamentary tributes to Del Singh

The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition led the tributes to Del Singh during Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s questions:

The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron): I am sure that the whole House would want to join me in paying tribute to Del Singh and to Simon Chase who were tragically killed in Kabul on Sunday in a cowardly terrorist attack. Both were there to support the Afghan Government and to improve the lives of the Afghan people. Del Singh was a friend to many in the House and had given so much time and dedication to troubled regions across the world. Our thoughts should be with their families and friends at this very difficult time.

Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab): I want to start by paying tribute to the two British nationals, Simon Chase and Del Singh, who were killed in a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan. Simon Chase had served Britain in the Army, and my condolences go to all his family and friends. Del Singh was one of Labour’s European candidates, and one of the most decent people one could ever hope to meet. He was an international development worker who dedicated his life to helping people across the world, and we all grieve with his family.

Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab): May I also thank the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition for their kind words about my friend Del Singh, who devoted his too-short life to working for peace and justice, not least in Palestine and Afghanistan?

Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab): Del Singh was an extraordinary person: a warm and generous friend, and a passionate campaigner for peace and justice. He dedicated his life to working for those in need in areas of conflict, including in Afghanistan. Will the Prime Minister assure the House that, after the drawdown of troops this year, the work of people such as Del Singh will continue to be supported by this Government?

The Prime Minister: I very much share what she said about Del Singh. It reminds us of the risks that aid workers take on our behalf to deliver vital assistance around the world. I can give her the assurance she seeks. It is very important for everyone to recognise that, while our troops are coming home at the end of 2014, our commitment to Afghanistan will continue: not just our commitment to its armed forces but, with more than $100 million a year, our commitment to its aid and future development. We will need many more brave people such as Del Singh to go on working with the Afghan Government to deliver for the Afghan people.

Mini briefing on Palestine and Mandela

The death of Nelson Mandela has reminded the world of the power of a boycott in ending apartheid in South Africa and the existence of another form of apartheid in Palestine.

Mandela said in a speech in 1997 that “our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians”.  The parallels between South Africa’s struggle against apartheid and the Palestinians struggle have not only been drawn by Palestinians. Alon Liel, who was Israeli ambassador to South Africa in 1992-4, has said: “The situation that has developed in the West Bank over four and a half decades is a kind of apartheid. If you compare the suffering of black people in South Africa under 40 years of apartheid, and the suffering of the Palestinians under 46 years of occupation, I don’t know who suffered more.”

Liel has drawn parallels also between Mandela and Marwan Barghouti, who has spent nearly 12 years in an Israeli prison but is still one of the most popular politicians in Palestine. Liel is possibly the only man who has known both Mandela and Barghouti well.

From his Cell n°28 in Hadarim prison in Israel, Barghouti wrote an appreciation of Mandela in which he said: “From within my prison cell, I tell you that our freedom seems possible because you reached yours”.

Last year his wife Fadwa Barghouti sat in Mandela’s old cell in the B section of Robben Island prison and signed an international declaration calling for the release of Marwan Barghouti and all the other political prisoners in Israeli jails.  She was accompanied by Ahmed Kathrada, Nelson Mandela’s close friend who had launched a similar international campaign for his release many years earlier, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Tutu, the architect of South Africa’s own truth and reconciliation process, is among those who believe that if the Israeli government really wanted peace, they would release Marwan Barghouti.

They had a chance when they agreed to release 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in an exchange deal for the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011.  They were asked by both Fatah and Hamas to release him as part of the deal. They did release 1,027 prisoners, including many who had been convicted of multiple murders and were serving life sentences, but not Barghouti.

They had the opportunity again when they released 104 long-term prisoners as part of the deal negotiated by US State Secretary John Kerry for peace negotiations last nine months between August 2013 and May 2014.  But, again, they have not released him.

The Israeli politicians who have supported his release include the Israeli President Shimon Peres who declared in January 2007 that he would sign a presidential pardon for Marwan Barghouti if elected to the Israeli presidency.  He was elected, but he has not signed the pardon.

Mini-briefing on Gaza

Written answers since the last FCO questions have elicited the answer (see below) that ministers are “deeply concerned by the chronic humanitarian situation in Gaza, which has been exacerbated by recent severe weather, leading to significant flooding and property damage. Widespread flooding has necessitated the evacuation of hundreds of families in Gaza…..Heavy rain and snow in Gaza has led to widespread flooding and power cuts. Electricity feeder lines from Egypt and Israel were damaged on 12 December and, although they have been mostly repaired, subsequent bad weather has continued to damage the domestic network and electricity supply. On 16 December, following a Qatari donation to the Palestinian Authority to fund the purchase of fuel for Gaza, the Gaza power plant restarted partial operations for the first time since 1 November.”

They have also elicited the fact that the blockade of Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank “have been estimated as costing the Palestinian economy up to 85% of its Gross Domestic Product every year”.

Mini-briefing on Bedouin clearances

The Israeli government has postponed the Prawer-Begin Bill that would have forcibly relocated 40,000 Bedouin Arabs from their ancestral lands in the Negev to government-designated towns.

But this may only be a temporary delay for consultations. The Bill’s co-sponsor admitted he had not consulted the Bedouin about his plan. “I didn’t tell anyone that the Bedouin agreed to my plan. I couldn’t say that because I didn’t present the plan to them,” said former minister Benny Begin.

The Israelis call it the “relocation” Bedouin. The “relocation” is done by evicting them and demolishing their houses and farm buildings.

http://jfjfp.com/?page_id=32203

At the same time they are trying to “relocate” Bedouins in semi-desert areas around to Jerusalem to make way for new illegal settlements.

http://jfjfp.com/?p=31801

Bedouins are families who live in semi-arid areas and traditional live a semi-nomadic lifestyle, moving their flocks of sheep or goats around according to season.

Mini-briefing on child detainees

Hugh Robertson pledged his support for the Foreign Office-funded report Children in Military Custody and its 40 recommendations: “I entirely support it and during my time as a minister, I will do everything I can to ensure that its recommendations are properly and correctly implemented.”

The report’s authors, Sir Stephen Sedley QC, Baroness Scotland, and others, will revisit Israel in March to review progress.  So far only two or three of their 40 recommendations have been carried out by the Israelis, reducing the maximum period of detention of children without charge from 60 to 40 days and the maximum before appearing before a judge from 4 days to one for 12-13 year-olds and to two for 14-15 year olds.

This does only a little to reduce the abuses which mainly occur in the first 24 hours after Palestinian children are arrested in the middle of the night, interrogated without parents or lawyers present, bullied into signing confessions in a language they do not understand and jailed sometimes as young as 12.

Children in Military Custody report>

 

Mini-briefing on the peace talks

US State Secretary John Kerry was in Jerusalem and Ramallah again last week for his tenth visit trying to re-energise the talks, but it is fast becoming clear that progress is severely hampered by the continuing expansion of settlements.

A breakthrough is always possible, and would be most welcome, but one has to be very optimistic to believe there could be a settlement by the end of the nine months in April.

Last week Netanyahu released the third group of Palestinian prisoners, all of whom have already served more than 22 years, but he “balanced” the release by announced yet more new settlements in the West Bank.

The Palestinians revoked their claim on 78% of historic Palestine in 1988 in the belief that all the remaining 22% would become a Palestinian state and all their prisoners would be released. They have made their historic compromise. They should not be asked for more.

Mini-briefing on settlement trade

On the day of the last Foreign Office questions – December 3rd – Hugh Robertson finally published his long-promised “business guidance” to firms trading with illegal settlements by uploading it onto the DTI’s Overseas Business Risk website, but he made no announcement and did not even mention it when he was questioned about settlement trade in the Commons.

Now, six weeks later, is the first opportunity to question him about it. The first thing is to congratulate him on at least saying the Government “does not encourage” trade with illegal settlements. The second is to press him to go further than this very cautious first step.

It took the press a week before they even noticed that new business guidance was up on the website – so has he notified companies already trading with settlements?  Has he warned companies that they are running legal and reputational risks by trading with illegal settlements?

The guidance says:

  • We do not encourage economic or financial activities in the settlements. We do not offer support to such activity.
  • Firms must be aware of legal and economic risks in financial transactions, investments, purchases, procurements, other economic activities, including tourism, in Israeli settlements or benefiting Israeli settlements owing to disputed titles to land, water, mineral or other natural resources
  • They must also be aware of potential reputational implications of getting involved in economic and financial activities in settlements.

William Hague applauds the effectiveness of economic sanctions on Iran and says this week’s deal “vindicates the policy of pressure through sanctions”, but recoils from effective economic pressure on Israel even though he admits Israel is in clear breach of international law on settlements, on the wall, on prisoners in Israeli jails and on east Jerusalem.

A report in The Independent this week says that the OECD is holding an inquiry into G4S’s sale of surveillance equipment to Israeli for use in checkpoints in Palestine.  Also this week Dutch pension fund PGGM has withdrawn over of million euros from five Israeli banks because of their involvement in illegal settlements in the West Bank.