Tom Tugendhat

I thank the Foreign Secretary for advance sight of his statement. As we meet today, let me start with what we agree on. We agree that illegal settlements are wrong. We all agree that groups of settlers have been guilty of outrageous abuses of ordinary Palestinians and crimes against innocent civilians. We agree that some Israeli Ministers have indulged in hateful propaganda and incitement. We agree that the current path is leading Israelis and Palestinians towards a darker, more dangerous future. We agree that Hamas’s terrorist atrocity of 7 October left many Jews in Israel and around the world afraid and vulnerable. We agree that the suffering in Gaza is horrific. But we also agree that those who praise Hamas and other terror groups or see them as legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people are wrong, that payments to those who are killed while attacking Israeli civilians are wrong, and that those who call for the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state and the murder of its citizens with cries of, “From the river to the sea,” are wrong. Ignoring the victims on all sides and putting at risk the viability of the two-state solution is wrong. This is not about Israel alone, and it certainly is not about reducing the complexity of the region to a single sentence. Sadly, the Government are in the process of doing just that. When they recognised the state of Palestine, only recently, they did so against the laws we ourselves have defended since 1933, in contravention of the Montevideo convention and of the principles we have set out. When they sanctioned Israeli Ministers, they failed to make the case to many others, including the European Union, and today they are enacting a policy that the Foreign Office knows will not work. The Government also know that this policy will harm innocents. Just 13 weeks ago, two Ministers of this Government—the right hon. Members for Lincoln (Mr Falconer) and for Rhondda and Ogmore (Chris Bryant)—wrote to the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee, the right hon. Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), rejecting this very policy as the economies of Palestine and Israel are too interconnected—innocent Palestinians and Israelis will suffer. Still this Government are pressing on in haste, despite warnings from the Labour Benches from the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Dr Prinsley) and from the Government’s own reviewer of terrorism legislation that turning Israel into a pariah risks sectarian division in our own country and a further rise in antisemitic violence on our streets. As the Foreign Secretary knows, others are waiting. The Israeli election is in just seven weeks, and many have correctly argued that this action will help the extreme candidates’ campaigns, not those who are making the moderate argument for a united Israel. In the week before Rosh Hashanah and the high holy days, the Government are acting without prudence, introducing sanctions that are both light and serious. They are light because they will not actually target settlers—as the Minister for Intergovernmental Relations has said—but will be stretched to include all Israeli and Palestinian businesses, leaving many without opportunity, including those who make the pharmaceuticals that keep many British patients alive. They are serious because they risk what the Foreign Secretary has himself condemned: encouraging sectarianism and antisemitism at home, and discouraging co-operation abroad. As such, I have six questions for the Foreign Secretary. First, on the coherence of the policy, can he confirm that the advice from his Department on the practicality of sanctions has changed so dramatically that these sanctions will in reality be targeted, not area as previously stated? Secondly, what conversations has he had with wider partners and allies to co-ordinate a full international action that might actually work, and why will he not wait for the result? Thirdly, what assessment has he made of the impact on domestic security and community cohesion in the United Kingdom, barely a year since the first antisemitic murder in our country in generations? Fourthly, what assessment has he made of the impact on our security partnerships with both Israel and the United States, which have kept Iranian regime-backed murderers off our streets for the past few years? Fifthly, what instructions has he given to the enforcement bodies to ensure that Parkinson’s, myeloma and multiple sclerosis patients will still get the drugs that keep them alive? Finally, will he let us know now what instructions he has given to the Foreign Office for the accreditation of diplomats to the Palestinian embassy should Hamas win the elections in November and send their own envoys here under diplomatic immunity? We have seen growing antisemitism in the United Kingdom, and we have seen increasing violence against Jewish targets. The Conservative party will always reject the hate-filled sectarianism that we have seen on our streets. We can—and where appropriate, should—criticise the Israeli Government, and still defend the right of the Jewish people to a home. I place on record my and my party’s deep sadness at the violence we have seen in recent months and years, our commitment to the right of Palestinians and Israelis to live in dignity and peace, and our recognition of those who have been victims over generations. None of us here rejects the Government’s stated aim that we must do everything we can to end the cycle of violence, and we welcome the sanctions against Al-Qard Al-Hassan and the condemnation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. However, I am sorry to say that this Government are wrong. As the Foreign Office has previously stated, this policy will damage the interests of innocent Palestinians, Israelis who condemn settlements, and the British people. What we reject is not the intent, but the performative politics and acting without wide support that leaves our envoys weaker and their voices irrelevant. We know, from our own history, that we do not make peace from just one side, and nor do we make it alone.