Clare Short on cruelty of occupation
Former International Development Secretary of State, Clare Short MP, called an adjournment debate in the House of Commons on 26 June, following a visit to the Palestinian Occupied Territories organised by War on Want. She was accompanied by the War on Want President, Rodney Bickerstaffe – the former General Secretary of Unison.
In the debate Clare Short graphically outlined the system of occupation being imposed on the Palestinian people.
"I was deeply shocked” she said “by Israel’s blatant, brutal and systematic annexation of land, demolition of Palestinian homes, and deliberate creation of an apartheid system by which the Palestinians are enclosed in four bantustans, surrounded by a wall, with massive checkpoints that control all Palestinian movements in and out of the ghettos."
She described seeing a Palestinian house being demolished in East Jerusalem.
"The delegation spent the second day of its visit with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), an organisation that I greatly admire. The committee took us on a tour of East Jerusalem and showed us how the combination of formal and informal settlements, and systematic house demolition, was encircling East Jerusalem and how that constrained, displaced and ethnically cleansed the Palestinian population. When we were with ICAHD, we witnessed a house demolition. A massive machine with Volvo emblazoned on its side destroyed a substantial house that was built by a Palestinian family on their own land and in territory that belongs to the Palestinians under international law—formally, it is occupied territory."
She visited the Jordan Valley where impoverished Palestinians live next to wealthy Israeli agricultural settlements.
“The situation there is truly terrible,” she said “All fertile land near the river has been confiscated by Israel, supposedly for security purposes under the Oslo peace accords. In the remaining territory, there are occasionally settlements, some of only one person, which lead to Palestinian families being removed from their land for security reasons. There are acres of plastic greenhouses that are organised and worked by settlers and which are strategically located over water sources. They grow organic herbs and other agricultural produce for the European market and yet, when we visited a totally impoverished nearby Palestinian village, we found that there was no school and, that day, no water—the one tap in the village gave no water. The impoverished Palestinians must buy water by the bucket from the settlers."
Clare Short said that "the Government and the EU are colluding in that oppression and the building of a new apartheid regime. In particular, Israel has privileged access to the EU market under a trade treaty that, like all EU trade treaties, contains human rights conditions. I hope that the Minister will explain why those conditions are not invoked to insist on Israeli compliance with international law. That is a big lever, and Israel would be frightened of losing access to the EU market. I wish that we would make use of that for everyone’s benefit."
Minister for the Middle East Dr Kim Howells responded for the Government. He acknowledged that the Wall broke international law. He also acknowledged that the situation on the ground was untenable.
"It is hard to believe that a viable state, albeit small, could emerge from such a geographical configuration. It is difficult to see how it could work. We must keep pressing the Israelis."
However he refused to be moved on the EU trade agreement. “We should at every possible opportunity engage the Israelis on human rights and on compliance with their undertakings, which, as a consequence, enable them to enjoy access to the European market. We should talk to them about that, but I have a feeling that there are already far too many strictures on all sides to add another one. It would just create more tension, and we should try to build on what we have, aim for the high ground and figure out how we can get there by engaging with both sides.”