Prospects In The Middle East
Annual Lunch of Labour Friends of Israel,
London
November 4th, 2008
I want today to talk about the future of Israel and the future of the wider Middle East. I will do so with urgency and concern because the Middle East is undergoing one of the most tumultuous and dangerous periods of its contemporary history. What happens over the next few years – whether a two state solution is reached, whether a model of extremism and violence is viewed as inspiration or illusion, whether Arab public opinion moves towards acceptance of Israel or denial of its right to exist – will be of vital importance for many years to come.
To chart a way forward, we need first to acknowledge the past.
Over the last twelve months we have marked many important anniversaries. Next week seventy years since Kristallnacht – the terrible harbinger of the Holocaust. And sixty years ago, out of that valley of despair, the State of Israel emerged. Israel became no less than an affirmation of life in the face of death. And each time Israel wins a Nobel Prize, sends humanitarian aid workers to help victims of natural disaster in countries far away, educates its own people, signs a peace treaty with a neighbour, it reaffirms its place as a leading state of the modern world.
I saw this for myself on a visit last November, and will do so again when I return in a couple of weeks. One of the world's liveliest democracies; a distinguished independent judiciary; a vibrant market economy; a cultural mosaic. And a country with global links.
For these and other reasons I am proud to say that the Government shared with LFI a profound conviction that a stable Middle East starts with a secure Israel at its heart.
It is 170 years ago exactly that Britain was the first great power to open a Consulate in Jerusalem – a recognition of the importance of the city to three great faiths. Today the links are personal, cultural, political and economic. Large numbers of British youngsters go to Israel during their gap years. Trade ties between Britain and Israel now stand at £2.3 billion pounds. British tourism to Israel is the highest it has ever been. And let us also celebrate academic exchange between the UK and Israel, and say the more the better.
In two weeks, we welcome President Peres here on his first State Visit. We will repay the compliment paid to our Prime Minister Gordon Brown who became the first British Prime Minister to address the Knesset earlier this year. Gordon’s visit was a powerful affirmation of shared values and shared commitments. His speech put it best when he said to Israel’s Parliament: “Britain is your true friend.”
There is another anniversary that we should mark. I believe Yitzhak Rabin was not just one of the great leaders that Israel has produced; he was one of the great leaders the world has produced.
People of an older generation say they remember where they were when JFK was shot. I remember the day Rabin was shot. It was a Saturday in 1995. I was at home. I switched on the news and the shock was electric, the grief real, the sense of foreboding telling.
The date: 4 November, 13 years ago today.
Rabin talked of himself as a soldier. He remembered and quoted his military ID number: 30743. And he often remarked that those who have known the horror of war are the best soldiers in the army of peace.
This is what he said to King Hussein, President Mubarak, Chairman Arafat and Bill Clinton at the White House in 1995, celebrating the peace with Jordan:
“We all love the same children, weep the same tears, hate the same enmity and pray for reconciliation. Peace has no borders...Here is where we were born. Here is where we created a nation. Here we forged a haven for the persecuted and built a model of a democratic country. But we are not alone here on this soil, in this land...Our neighbours, the Palestinian people – we who have seen you in your difficulties, we saw you for generations; we who have killed and been killed are walking beside you now toward a common future, and we want you as good neighbours.”
The Rabin vision was a good one. It was not unique to him. In fact its roots go back to the Peel Commission presented to Parliament by one of my predecessors in 1937 which concluded: “To both Arabs and Jews Partition offers a prospect – and there is none in any other policy – of obtaining the inestimable boon of peace”.
The basics of an agreement command an unparalleled level of consensus:
• two states based on 1967 borders;
• Israel secure from attack and recognised by and at peace with its neighbours;
• a democratic, viable and contiguous state of Palestine committed to live peacefully alongside Israel;
• Jerusalem as the capital for both;
• and a just and agreed settlement for refugees.
It is in the nature of our party’s traditions to be optimistic about the future. To resist the temptations of fatalism. But today we must be honest with ourselves. Surveying the Middle East now, it is hard not to feel a deep sense of apprehension about the future.
Not because Rabin’s vision has lost support; in fact, the world, Israeli and Palestinian leaderships included, is united as never before in its belief in a two state solution. But our efforts are failing.
For so many in Israel, the never-ending peace process appears as an endless disenchantment. They feel threatened and under siege. They have faced attacks from Gaza and Lebanon after withdrawal. They saw an electoral victory handed to Hamas which vows to destroy them. They fear growing militancy in the region, led by the looming shadow of a nuclear Iran.
At risk is that which Israelis most crave and need: normalcy, security, acceptance as a proud state that Jews can call home.
For Palestinians, feeling cheated and abused, there are equal fears. That the grandiose peace promise is a scam. That talks are a screen to cover continued settlement expansion, home demolition, land confiscation and the daily indignities of occupation. That despite the ceasefire, life for Gazans is not improving. They talk with Israel, but fear they are being robbed of that which they are supposed to be talking about.
At risk is that which they most crave: a secure home of their own.
People are told talks are progressing. That more time is needed. But the Israeli and Palestinian people are losing faith in a fair settlement, not because it is outlandish but because it is at once so close and so elusive.
They are tiring of the conflict, we are told. True. But they are also tiring, faster, of efforts to resolve it, a condition that is far worse.
One reason is that, as Tony Blair has repeatedly emphasised, most recently in his presentation to European Foreign Ministers in September, the practical situation on the ground undermines the political process, just as the political process frames the situation on the ground. There is a vicious circle.
Settlements are one reason. A year ago at Annapolis Israel recommitted to freeze settlements. Yet in the first five months of this year, the Israeli Housing Ministry initiated 80% more settlement building in the West Bank than in the same period last year. In Palestinian East Jerusalem, since Annapolis, tenders have been published for over 1,700 housing units. Settlement activity is not just illegal; it makes a Palestinian state more difficult to achieve by the week.
But settlements are not the only reason for the loss of confidence in the peace process. So are rocket attacks. So is the flow of increasingly lethal arms to Hizbollah and Hamas. And pragmatic and moderate Palestinian leadership is under threat: if Mahmood Abbas and Salaam Fayyad cannot broker a deal, there are extremists waiting in the wings and ready to pounce.
So disillusion creates danger; and danger needs to be addressed.
The status quo, the stalled search for a two state solution, has already put the idea of a binational state back on the agenda. As President Peres himself has said "If Israel loses its Jewish majority, it will cease to be a Jewish state. If it tries to maintain its Jewish character by force, it will no longer be democratic." So the stakes could not be higher.
As America votes today, and elects a new Government that will start work on January 20th, and as Israel gears up for an election on February 10th, so we all have to decide our own contribution for the time when those two governments are in place. Some reflections are obvious.
• That while Annapolis has not delivered on the goal of a Palestinian state, there is no substitute for political process.
• That countries like Britain must continue to support the Palestinian leadership of Abu Mazen and Salaam Fayyad, by training their security forces that are now patrolling Jenin and Hebron and supporting their economic development plan.
• That however helpful outside support, it can never substitute for the leadership that is required from the parties themselves.
• That whatever the strength of European efforts, the Middle East needs American engagement.
But I want to share with you another thought that is more challenging to all of us.
It starts with a paradox of the Annapolis process: for all the complaints last year about the narrow focus on the Palestinian track, one year on not only have there been very close discussions between Israel and the Palestinians, but there is now a live Syrian track, Lebanon now has a government with whom Syria has agreed to establish diplomatic relations, and Egypt has mediated a ceasefire in Gaza.
In other words, from a situation where for seven years things were stalled, now all the balls are in the air. And my conclusion is that the onlyway to settle the Palestinian issue is as part of a wider drive for a new alignment in the wider Middle East. At the UN Security Council in September I called it a comprehensive approach. At its core is a Palestinian state, but as part of a broader peace between Israel and the whole Arab world, in which all exercise their rights and fulfil their responsibilities.
A comprehensive approach is in some ways more complex than a single-minded focus on the Palestinian issue. But in truth security for Israel depends on peace with the Arab world and not just the Palestinians; and an end to the stateless tragedy of the Palestinians depends not just on support from Israel but support from their Arab neighbours.
The Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 - which offers full normalisation of relations with Israel in exchange for withdrawal from occupied land - was one of the most significant and promising developments since the onset of the conflict. The recent interest that both Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak have expressed in it is important. Not only do we need Arab countries to reassure Israelis about Arab commitment to normal, peaceful relations, but we need them to endow the Palestinian leadership with the Arab political support they need to do a deal.
Syria is important to this. That is one reason I met the Syrian Foreign Minister last week. I set out what I see as the profound responsibilities of his country – to curb the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq and arms to Hizbollah as well as to respect the sovereignty of Lebanon. But I also emphasised that a secular Syria had much to gain from playing a full role in an Arab coalition committed to the normalisation of relations with Israel, well beyond Syrian interest in settlement of the Golan Heights and Shebaa Farms.
It is easy to say we have been here before. Some Arab leaders say it, and so do some Israelis. But what we have not had before is an Iranian nuclear programme that poses a threat not just to Israel but to the stability of the entire Middle East. And that makes the case for a comprehensive approach that much more urgent. We must ensure that the unfinished business of Israel’s relationship with the Arab world is not a barrier to dealing properly with the Iranian nuclear issue.
We have made Iran serious offers of engagement, reintegration, and support for a civilian nuclear capacity, if they halt their enrichment-related activities as required by 5 UN Security Council Resolutions. Tehran should be in no doubt that unless they stop enriching uranium we and our allies will continue to step-up the pressure. In this, we need to work closely with Israel, and we will, not least through the Strategic Dialogue established between our two countries. But we also need to work with Iran’s Arab neighbours. The rhetoric of President Ahmedinejad is directed against Israel. The support for Hamas and Hizbollah is directed against Israel. But there is a growing awareness that Iran’s nuclear programme poses a threat to regional stability and therefore to all countries in the region.
I don’t underestimate the scale of the challenge or the size of the task. As Prime Minister Olmert said recently this opportunity "is limited in time – a time so short as to cause terrible distress”. But the scale of the challenge is what makes our engagement – all of our engagement, in Government, in Parliament, in business, in civil society, in strong and proud organisations like LFI – all the more necessary.
Yitzhak Rabin was fond of pointing out that in the Bible peace is mentioned in its various idioms 237 times. I am not a religious person but today I feel it is appropriate to say that we, Israeli’s most committed friends, need to do everything we can to serve Rabin’s vision, to ensure that the Biblical injunction is not lost, and that the flame of peace is kept alive. I assure you that is what our government, your government, will do.
Annual Lunch of Labour Friends of Israel,
London
November 4th, 2008
I want today to talk about the future of Israel and the future of the wider Middle East. I will do so with urgency and concern because the Middle East is undergoing one of the most tumultuous and dangerous periods of its contemporary history. What happens over the next few years – whether a two state solution is reached, whether a model of extremism and violence is viewed as inspiration or illusion, whether Arab public opinion moves towards acceptance of Israel or denial of its right to exist – will be of vital importance for many years to come.
To chart a way forward, we need first to acknowledge the past.
Over the last twelve months we have marked many important anniversaries. Next week seventy years since Kristallnacht – the terrible harbinger of the Holocaust. And sixty years ago, out of that valley of despair, the State of Israel emerged. Israel became no less than an affirmation of life in the face of death. And each time Israel wins a Nobel Prize, sends humanitarian aid workers to help victims of natural disaster in countries far away, educates its own people, signs a peace treaty with a neighbour, it reaffirms its place as a leading state of the modern world.
I saw this for myself on a visit last November, and will do so again when I return in a couple of weeks. One of the world's liveliest democracies; a distinguished independent judiciary; a vibrant market economy; a cultural mosaic. And a country with global links.
For these and other reasons I am proud to say that the Government shared with LFI a profound conviction that a stable Middle East starts with a secure Israel at its heart.
It is 170 years ago exactly that Britain was the first great power to open a Consulate in Jerusalem – a recognition of the importance of the city to three great faiths. Today the links are personal, cultural, political and economic. Large numbers of British youngsters go to Israel during their gap years. Trade ties between Britain and Israel now stand at £2.3 billion pounds. British tourism to Israel is the highest it has ever been. And let us also celebrate academic exchange between the UK and Israel, and say the more the better.
In two weeks, we welcome President Peres here on his first State Visit. We will repay the compliment paid to our Prime Minister Gordon Brown who became the first British Prime Minister to address the Knesset earlier this year. Gordon’s visit was a powerful affirmation of shared values and shared commitments. His speech put it best when he said to Israel’s Parliament: “Britain is your true friend.”
There is another anniversary that we should mark. I believe Yitzhak Rabin was not just one of the great leaders that Israel has produced; he was one of the great leaders the world has produced.
People of an older generation say they remember where they were when JFK was shot. I remember the day Rabin was shot. It was a Saturday in 1995. I was at home. I switched on the news and the shock was electric, the grief real, the sense of foreboding telling.
The date: 4 November, 13 years ago today.
Rabin talked of himself as a soldier. He remembered and quoted his military ID number: 30743. And he often remarked that those who have known the horror of war are the best soldiers in the army of peace.
This is what he said to King Hussein, President Mubarak, Chairman Arafat and Bill Clinton at the White House in 1995, celebrating the peace with Jordan:
“We all love the same children, weep the same tears, hate the same enmity and pray for reconciliation. Peace has no borders...Here is where we were born. Here is where we created a nation. Here we forged a haven for the persecuted and built a model of a democratic country. But we are not alone here on this soil, in this land...Our neighbours, the Palestinian people – we who have seen you in your difficulties, we saw you for generations; we who have killed and been killed are walking beside you now toward a common future, and we want you as good neighbours.”
The Rabin vision was a good one. It was not unique to him. In fact its roots go back to the Peel Commission presented to Parliament by one of my predecessors in 1937 which concluded: “To both Arabs and Jews Partition offers a prospect – and there is none in any other policy – of obtaining the inestimable boon of peace”.
The basics of an agreement command an unparalleled level of consensus:
• two states based on 1967 borders;
• Israel secure from attack and recognised by and at peace with its neighbours;
• a democratic, viable and contiguous state of Palestine committed to live peacefully alongside Israel;
• Jerusalem as the capital for both;
• and a just and agreed settlement for refugees.
It is in the nature of our party’s traditions to be optimistic about the future. To resist the temptations of fatalism. But today we must be honest with ourselves. Surveying the Middle East now, it is hard not to feel a deep sense of apprehension about the future.
Not because Rabin’s vision has lost support; in fact, the world, Israeli and Palestinian leaderships included, is united as never before in its belief in a two state solution. But our efforts are failing.
For so many in Israel, the never-ending peace process appears as an endless disenchantment. They feel threatened and under siege. They have faced attacks from Gaza and Lebanon after withdrawal. They saw an electoral victory handed to Hamas which vows to destroy them. They fear growing militancy in the region, led by the looming shadow of a nuclear Iran.
At risk is that which Israelis most crave and need: normalcy, security, acceptance as a proud state that Jews can call home.
For Palestinians, feeling cheated and abused, there are equal fears. That the grandiose peace promise is a scam. That talks are a screen to cover continued settlement expansion, home demolition, land confiscation and the daily indignities of occupation. That despite the ceasefire, life for Gazans is not improving. They talk with Israel, but fear they are being robbed of that which they are supposed to be talking about.
At risk is that which they most crave: a secure home of their own.
People are told talks are progressing. That more time is needed. But the Israeli and Palestinian people are losing faith in a fair settlement, not because it is outlandish but because it is at once so close and so elusive.
They are tiring of the conflict, we are told. True. But they are also tiring, faster, of efforts to resolve it, a condition that is far worse.
One reason is that, as Tony Blair has repeatedly emphasised, most recently in his presentation to European Foreign Ministers in September, the practical situation on the ground undermines the political process, just as the political process frames the situation on the ground. There is a vicious circle.
Settlements are one reason. A year ago at Annapolis Israel recommitted to freeze settlements. Yet in the first five months of this year, the Israeli Housing Ministry initiated 80% more settlement building in the West Bank than in the same period last year. In Palestinian East Jerusalem, since Annapolis, tenders have been published for over 1,700 housing units. Settlement activity is not just illegal; it makes a Palestinian state more difficult to achieve by the week.
But settlements are not the only reason for the loss of confidence in the peace process. So are rocket attacks. So is the flow of increasingly lethal arms to Hizbollah and Hamas. And pragmatic and moderate Palestinian leadership is under threat: if Mahmood Abbas and Salaam Fayyad cannot broker a deal, there are extremists waiting in the wings and ready to pounce.
So disillusion creates danger; and danger needs to be addressed.
The status quo, the stalled search for a two state solution, has already put the idea of a binational state back on the agenda. As President Peres himself has said "If Israel loses its Jewish majority, it will cease to be a Jewish state. If it tries to maintain its Jewish character by force, it will no longer be democratic." So the stakes could not be higher.
As America votes today, and elects a new Government that will start work on January 20th, and as Israel gears up for an election on February 10th, so we all have to decide our own contribution for the time when those two governments are in place. Some reflections are obvious.
• That while Annapolis has not delivered on the goal of a Palestinian state, there is no substitute for political process.
• That countries like Britain must continue to support the Palestinian leadership of Abu Mazen and Salaam Fayyad, by training their security forces that are now patrolling Jenin and Hebron and supporting their economic development plan.
• That however helpful outside support, it can never substitute for the leadership that is required from the parties themselves.
• That whatever the strength of European efforts, the Middle East needs American engagement.
But I want to share with you another thought that is more challenging to all of us.
It starts with a paradox of the Annapolis process: for all the complaints last year about the narrow focus on the Palestinian track, one year on not only have there been very close discussions between Israel and the Palestinians, but there is now a live Syrian track, Lebanon now has a government with whom Syria has agreed to establish diplomatic relations, and Egypt has mediated a ceasefire in Gaza.
In other words, from a situation where for seven years things were stalled, now all the balls are in the air. And my conclusion is that the onlyway to settle the Palestinian issue is as part of a wider drive for a new alignment in the wider Middle East. At the UN Security Council in September I called it a comprehensive approach. At its core is a Palestinian state, but as part of a broader peace between Israel and the whole Arab world, in which all exercise their rights and fulfil their responsibilities.
A comprehensive approach is in some ways more complex than a single-minded focus on the Palestinian issue. But in truth security for Israel depends on peace with the Arab world and not just the Palestinians; and an end to the stateless tragedy of the Palestinians depends not just on support from Israel but support from their Arab neighbours.
The Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 - which offers full normalisation of relations with Israel in exchange for withdrawal from occupied land - was one of the most significant and promising developments since the onset of the conflict. The recent interest that both Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak have expressed in it is important. Not only do we need Arab countries to reassure Israelis about Arab commitment to normal, peaceful relations, but we need them to endow the Palestinian leadership with the Arab political support they need to do a deal.
Syria is important to this. That is one reason I met the Syrian Foreign Minister last week. I set out what I see as the profound responsibilities of his country – to curb the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq and arms to Hizbollah as well as to respect the sovereignty of Lebanon. But I also emphasised that a secular Syria had much to gain from playing a full role in an Arab coalition committed to the normalisation of relations with Israel, well beyond Syrian interest in settlement of the Golan Heights and Shebaa Farms.
It is easy to say we have been here before. Some Arab leaders say it, and so do some Israelis. But what we have not had before is an Iranian nuclear programme that poses a threat not just to Israel but to the stability of the entire Middle East. And that makes the case for a comprehensive approach that much more urgent. We must ensure that the unfinished business of Israel’s relationship with the Arab world is not a barrier to dealing properly with the Iranian nuclear issue.
We have made Iran serious offers of engagement, reintegration, and support for a civilian nuclear capacity, if they halt their enrichment-related activities as required by 5 UN Security Council Resolutions. Tehran should be in no doubt that unless they stop enriching uranium we and our allies will continue to step-up the pressure. In this, we need to work closely with Israel, and we will, not least through the Strategic Dialogue established between our two countries. But we also need to work with Iran’s Arab neighbours. The rhetoric of President Ahmedinejad is directed against Israel. The support for Hamas and Hizbollah is directed against Israel. But there is a growing awareness that Iran’s nuclear programme poses a threat to regional stability and therefore to all countries in the region.
I don’t underestimate the scale of the challenge or the size of the task. As Prime Minister Olmert said recently this opportunity "is limited in time – a time so short as to cause terrible distress”. But the scale of the challenge is what makes our engagement – all of our engagement, in Government, in Parliament, in business, in civil society, in strong and proud organisations like LFI – all the more necessary.
Yitzhak Rabin was fond of pointing out that in the Bible peace is mentioned in its various idioms 237 times. I am not a religious person but today I feel it is appropriate to say that we, Israeli’s most committed friends, need to do everything we can to serve Rabin’s vision, to ensure that the Biblical injunction is not lost, and that the flame of peace is kept alive. I assure you that is what our government, your government, will do.
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