Israel and Palestine
I think we have sent a clear message today about those involved—businesses and individuals—in settlement activity. I will look at the point my hon. Friend has raised and write to him.
Showing every spoken contribution, including 12,832 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
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Israel and Palestine
There were a lot of questions there, but I really do utterly reject the premise of the hon. Member’s question, which is that this is somehow about the destruction of the state of Israel. Actually, my real fear is that the path the Israeli Government have embarked upon is undermining Israel’s security. I say to him very gently that it must be possible for us as a House, at the level of principle, to understand the difference between green-line Israel—within the 1967 borders—and the occupied territories. If we conclude that the settlements and the occupation are illegal, the right thing to do is to act.
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Israel and Palestine
I thank my hon. Friend for the conversations we had in the run-up to this statement. I make this open offer to people across the House: the Minister for the Middle East, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), and I will work with Members in the run-up to the work we will do at the UN General Assembly. We have an important opportunity at UNGA to try to make a difference with the situation in Gaza. I look forward to working with him and others across the House on that question.
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Israel and Palestine
The hon. Lady raises such an important point. My hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East was at the Al-Arish checkpoint, where he saw supposedly dual-use goods being blocked from going in. My answer is that the way that dual-use goods are being blocked is appalling. One’s only conclusion is that it is a strategy. It is deeply disturbing. I call on the Government of Israel to stop blocking the many entirely innocent dual-use goods that could make a difference to the people of Gaza.
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Israel and Palestine
My hon. Friend raises an important point, which is that the number of aid workers and health workers killed in Gaza is appalling and dreadful. My hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East and I are happy to meet him and others—particularly in the run up to UNGA, but also beyond—because we need to try to make a difference.
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Israel and Palestine
The right hon. Gentleman has an honourable record on this issue. I will quickly clip through his questions, knowing the constraints on time, Madam Speaker. I agree with him on the World Central Kitchen. It is appalling that the investigation has been closed down. When one hears what happened in that incident, it makes one’s blood run cold, frankly. In the end, it amounted to a cold-blooded killing, in my view. On international law in general, we need to uphold international law, and we say that to all our partners. On timing, let me just say to the right hon. Gentleman that I want to do this as quickly as possible. We have to get it right for some of the reasons that have been discussed in this House—whether that is religious exemptions or making sure that we do not hit green-line Israel—but we want to do it as quickly as possible. If we can do it quicker, we will. I look forward to cross-party discussions on these questions. The other thing I would say to him is that our extension of the global human rights sanctions for international humanitarian law breaches will allow us to act more quickly, including on some of the things that could be captured in goods and services action.
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Israel and Palestine
We are strong supporters of the ICJ and the work it does on this question and a whole range of others. To bring together his question and the question from the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), it is very important that we uphold the work of these courts.
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Israel and Palestine
I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that under the previous Prime Minister this Government recognised the state of Palestine. That was a major thing that we did. I praise my predecessors for that, and we also took action on arms licences. I do not completely accept the picture he gives. I do agree though, and the Prime Minister has said this, that we need to do more. That is what we have done today. I think the sanctions regime will make a substantive difference, and that is absolutely our intention. He is right that once we bring in the sanctions regime, we will, as always, keep its scope under review.
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Israel and Palestine
I praise my hon. Friend for her work on this issue and for leading that debate. She is right that we are big supporters of the work of the ICC. More widely, she makes such an important point about upholding international law. It undermines our reputation globally when we fail to uphold international law. If we want to build strong alliances, we need to be consistent in our approach.
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Israel and Palestine
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question and for the conversation we had on this issue the other night when we ran into each other, which I found incredibly useful and important. He is absolutely right. We cannot stand by; we have to act. This is partly about our psychology as a country. We are not powerless—particularly when we work with others.
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Israel and Palestine
Absolutely. These are issues that we raise with our Israeli counterparts. There are so many crises in Palestine, but this is a terrible crisis, which perhaps does not get the attention it deserves. The withholding of money, in its own way, is threatening the viability of the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian state. Yes, they need to keep reforming, but Israel needs to release the funds.
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Israel and Palestine
The hon. Lady raises an important issue. I think she will know that as we design a sanctions regime, we do not comment on individual companies in advance, but I think my statement was very clear: we do not want to see the construction, financing and so on of settlement expansion. That is the way we will think about our sanctions regime.
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Israel and Palestine
My right hon. Friend speaks with enormous distinction on these and many other issues, and I thank him for his contribution. He is right. I urge Members in all parts of the House to read the accounts of what is happening in the west bank and what is happening in relation to the settlers. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that members of the IDF are anything other than complicit in what is happening—episode after episode that has been documented of what is actually happening on the ground.
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Israel and Palestine
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his contribution. His experience speaks to the frustration of Ministers on both sides of this House who have repeatedly tried to make a difference, pleading with Israeli Ministers to see what was going on and to act on it, and who have been rebuffed. That is what has led to today’s announcement.
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Israel and Palestine
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The world’s eyes have rightly been on the crisis in Gaza. The world’s eyes have to be on that crisis and also on the appalling settler terrorism we are seeing in the west bank. I talked about it in my statement, but the fact that a former Israeli Prime Minister described it as ethnic cleansing should give people—not just in this House, but in Israel—proper pause about what is actually happening.
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Israel and Palestine
Like all our sanctions regimes, fines and action will be taken against companies that breach them. We are widely known across the world for the strength of our sanctions regime. It is really important to underline the point that, by using the SAMLA powers, these will be tough sanctions, and it will be absolutely clear that there will be penalties for breaching them.
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Israel and Palestine
Obviously, those comments are absurd and wrong. The Falkland Islands are British and will remain so because that is what the islanders want. Those comments show a complete lack of understanding and comprehension of the injustice and unlawfulness that is going on in relation to the occupied territories, because it is an occupation against the will of the people there. The Falkland Islands are British, as I say, because that is what the Falkland Islanders want.
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Israel and Palestine
That will be the responsibility of British businesses and other businesses that want to import into this country. I want to underline this point. That is the point of the sanctions regime we are bringing in. Just to develop the point a bit more, it is likely to be based on the postcodes of where the settlements are. Companies will have to say that the goods they are bringing in do not come from those areas.
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Israel and Palestine
I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. I also thank him for the conversations we have had in the run-up to the statement; they have been important. I will say a couple of things. We absolutely oppose the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement against Israel. This is about settlements in the occupied territories. In answer to the question from the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) on why this will take six to nine months, it is precisely to get the regime right so that it does not affect or impinge on green-line Israel.
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Israel and Palestine
The hon. Lady raises a very, very important case, and I am glad that she has done. I am happy to look at it and will endeavour to do everything I can to make a difference.
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Israel and Palestine
My hon. Friend has been an incredibly powerful advocate on the issue for a long period of time, and I welcome her words. She is absolutely right: I am afraid that inaction is simply abdicating our responsibilities for what we see happening before our eyes, and what has been eloquently described by Members on both sides of this House. That is why we have taken this action, which is designed to make a difference and help to save the two-state solution.
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Israel and Palestine
I regret the tone of the hon. Gentleman’s question, honestly. He needs to take a sober look at what has happened in relation to Israel and Palestine, and what is happening in Gaza and the west bank. From Members on his own side, as well as across the House, he has heard the huge injustices eloquently described. My view is that we need to be tackling injustice across the world, but we cannot ignore the centrality of Israel and Palestine—both our historic relationship with Israel and our responsibilities, and the suffering of the Palestinian people. Frankly, in terms of our geopolitical interests, we will never have stability in the middle east without a two-state solution. For all those reasons, it is right that we act.
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Israel and Palestine
I think the answer to my hon. Friend’s question is no. I want to correct him on one thing: these are not anti-Israel policies. This is about the occupied territories, which we as a Government, along with the ICJ, have found were unlawfully occupied—it is really important to say that. Once we decide that it is an unlawful occupation, I do believe that, as a matter of principle and morality, then other things follow about the economic relationships that we choose to have.
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Israel and Palestine
I thank the hon. Member for her kind words, and for her kind words behind the Chamber as we were coming in; they meant a lot to me. I want to do this as quickly as possible. Six to nine months is what I said in the statement, but if we can do it quicker, we will. We want to get this step right, because it is important that it actually makes a difference. It is also important to say—because it is, in a sense, the thing that will have got less attention today—that our extension of the global human rights regime to international humanitarian law violations will also help us to take action even more swiftly.
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Israel and Palestine
I thank my hon. Friend for the conversation we had earlier. He raises such an important issue about the healthcare crisis in Gaza. The answer is that we want to do as much as we can as a country, and as much as we can working with others. I spoke to the Jordanian Foreign Minister on Sunday about an event that we are going to hold at the UN General Assembly, and one of the things that we both agreed on was that we want to move things forward and make a difference. I absolutely promise my hon. Friend that that is what we will endeavour to do.
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Israel and Palestine
I want to see Israel withdraw from Gaza and I want to see Hamas disarm. That is the whole point of the 20-point plan—I agree with the right hon. Member on that. Campaigners on the issue have played an important role. The way in which young people and people across the country—not just in Britain but across the world—have been mobilised on this issue should tell all of us in this House something about the deep sense of injustice that people feel about what has unfolded. On the right hon. Member’s point about intelligence—I want to be careful on this—we are not, in any sense, helping with the occupation, but we have important and valued intelligence and security relationships with Israel.
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Israel and Palestine
My hon. Friend raises an important point. As I talked about in my statement, through investment we have made a difference to the security of Jewish people across Britain. In a sense, we all have a responsibility on this issue, not just as politicians but as a society. I re-emphasise what I said in my statement, because it is so important: no British Jew should be held responsible for the actions of the Israeli Government. All of us—I really urge this of all Members—have a responsibility to transmit that message to the public, because whether through a combination of prejudice or ignorance, I am afraid that people often do not understand that lesson, and it leads to terrible antisemitism.
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Israel and Palestine
We will look at all these issues as part of our sanctions regime. It is important to protect trade with green-line Israel and financial services within it as well, and that is why we want to be careful with this sanctions regime. On the first part of the hon. Lady’s remarks, I thank her for what she said. I do feel a sense of humility. If I could just add this, Madam Deputy Speaker: as some in this House will know, my late mother, who died a few months ago, was a big campaigner on these issues, and I have thought quite a lot in this process about what she might be saying on these issues.
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Israel and Palestine
I have set out our plans today; this is what we are going to do. My hon. Friend speaks with great eloquence on these questions. We have to decide what is in our national interest and what is the right thing for Britain, based on our values.
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Israel and Palestine
If I may say so, I do not think that is a very responsible way of talking about these issues. The hon. Gentleman is welcome to disagree with our actions, as I think the right hon. Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat) did, but I do not think he should be talking in this way. I could not have been clearer in my statement that no British Jew is responsible for the policies of the Israeli Government, and it behoves us all, whichever side of this debate we are on, to ensure that there can be no confusion about that question. I am afraid his question fell afoul of that.
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Israel and Palestine
I will answer briefly, Madam Deputy Speaker. We will get on with the process now of making the statutory instrument happen. I just want to pick up on my hon. Friend’s earlier point. On the day the new Prime Minister was sworn in, I happened to meet a young man—he was 17 or so—who had been at school in the UK, and he spoke to me about the antisemitism he had faced since the age of 11 at his secondary school. All of us in this House need to take so seriously the everyday experiences of British Jews, which sees antisemitism not just in schools but elsewhere. We all have a responsibility to tackle that.
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Israel and Palestine
As I said earlier, when we impose sanctions on specific companies or entities, we do not say who they are in advance. However, I do not think I could have been clearer about the intent here; as I said in my statement, we do not want British companies being involved in the financing, construction or infrastructure of settlement expansion. That will be the purpose of the regime when it comes to services, and that is what we will make happen.
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Israel and Palestine
Well, that was worth my hon. Friend getting some extra time—thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend raises a really important issue around education, and an important issue around the safety of Jewish children going to school in the UK. We will take forward both of those issues.
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Israel and Palestine
The hon. Lady’s statement is a complete travesty. This Government are taking action. We are taking action on goods and on services, and we have banned arms licences for the IDF in Gaza. We have taken action across the board. We have declared the occupation unlawful. Her statement might have been designed for TikTok, but it really does not become her.
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Israel and Palestine
My hon. Friend speaks with great expertise on these issues, and she is absolutely right. We are going to act in our national interest on the basis of our values. That is not just our right but our duty as a country.
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Israel and Palestine
I am glad that the hon. Lady asked that question. She is absolutely right, and I can answer with an emphatic yes.
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Israel and Palestine
I thank my hon. Friend for her question; she is absolutely right about the question of access. Across the board, politicians and others are being denied access to see what is going on for themselves. That should make one extremely sceptical and fearful, frankly, of what is happening on the ground.
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Israel and Palestine
I do not accept any of what the right hon. Gentleman said. I have known him a long time, so I say this to him: how dare he try to speak for the Palestinian people instead of the Palestinian Prime Minister or the Palestinian ambassador in the UK? Why does he not meet the Palestinian ambassador in the UK and hear from him?
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Israel and Palestine
We will keep looking at what we can do for students and others from Gaza. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that. He makes a fundamental point: the ICJ has made its statement on legality, and we have taken a view on legality. People can accept that or not, but if we accept it, how can we possibly defend a continued and unchanged economic relationships with the occupied territories?
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Israel and Palestine
We have already sanctioned two Israeli Ministers who did that, but we always keep our sanctions regime under review. The hon. Gentleman makes a profoundly important point about the everyday intimidation that Palestinians on the west bank face—not just this year or under this Government but under previous Governments. It has been an endless amount of intimidation, and I saw it and heard from people about it in 2014 when I was there. Frankly, it is totally indefensible.