Lord Mitchell
Member of the House of Lords · Labour · United Kingdom
“In those days, no one quite understood the long-term dangers of radiation, and protection was rudimentary. For him, it was fatal. In 1998, he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia, which he knew was terminal. He told me, in his usual blunt way, “I know how this story ends and it is not pretty.”
“My Lords, on 9 October 2000, my parents-in-law, Jack and Ruth Lowy, committed joint suicide. He was dying and she had decided to accompany him on this last journey. Jack was born in Bratislava in what was then Czechoslovakia. The family were Jewish and following the events in Munich in 1938, they fled to Philadelphia.”
“My wife in particular sensed that they would carry out their wishes. After all, they were both intelligent people who had carefully thought this through. There was no one to support Jack and no one on hand to help Ruth in what must have been hell for her.”
“I cannot be certain about my mother-in-law’s motivation to join him, but they both knew that his own suicide at home could well run the risk of her being charged with committing a crime as an accomplice. What I do know is that had this Bill been law, she probably would have chosen life.”
“I always felt that the issue of antisemitism on campus did not emanate solely from the students. It also came from the laissez-faire attitude of the faculty.”
“We kept the brief tight, with no references to the Middle East; we judged that there was nothing we could do or say that could make any difference. Where we could definitely make a difference was through reference to our common UK experiences and our heritage. I think we made progress.”
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“My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, on her new position. I know that she started in a family business. I hope that she never forgets her background because it is crucial that in government she represents us in all these areas. Sometimes I wish that Members of the other place, who are often dismissive of your Lordships' House, could be present at a debate such as this. There is real expertise, born of experience at the coal face and able to voice opinions and recommendations that really do have validity. Interestingly, of the 11 Back-Bench speakers, eight come from the Labour Benches.”
“It lobbies hard, like the tobacco industry before it. It throws every impediment in front of the labelling proposals. No one seems to have the strength to stand up to it. This new Government have said that they intend to address our alcohol plague. We said the same but, if noble Lords will excuse the pun, I think we bottled it. My first question to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, who has always been a tremendous supporter of what I am proposing, is will the coalition Government take on the alcohol industry? Will they make labelling prominent, unambiguous and compulsory? If the Government really want to reverse the cult of alcohol, will they consider banning alcohol adverting, just like the Labour Government banned tobacco advertising?”
“It is very cute, very chichi and very tasteful in a rue Saint-Honoré sort of way, but it has little relevance to the culture of girls on the binge buying cheap cider and vodka at the local supermarket and getting legless as quickly as possible. We see the evidence every weekend in our city centres, do we not? There is nothing very elegant about it. What is more, the illustrations on the bottles I have seen are so small that you would need a magnifying glass to see them. The Americans have been much bolder on this issue, just as they were with tobacco. Any bottle, can or bar in the United States has a prominent label warning of the dangers to the unborn child of drinking while pregnant. They were introduced in 1989. Here is the stark truth: the alcohol industry runs circles around Governments.”
“In summary, the Bill said that if the alcohol industry did not abide by the terms of a memorandum of understanding that it had previously signed agreeing to include prominent labelling, legislation would be introduced to make it compulsory. I cannot tell noble Lords how many well meaning Ministers I discussed this issue with. Over numerous cups of tea, they told me that they were on the case, but they needed to complete this survey and that analysis and I could be assured that there would be a successful outcome. There was not. Go into any supermarket today and examine the bottles. A few have labels prominently displayed, but more than 80 per cent do not. Others have an illustration that the French use. It shows the outlines of an elegant and obviously pregnant woman holding a champagne glass with a diagonal strike going through it.”
“No one, least of all me, wants a nanny state; all I seek to do is to raise awareness of this danger. Just as was the case with the linkage between cigarette smoking and cancer, product labelling is a good place to start. Today, because of in-your-face labelling on tobacco products, few people can be unaware of their dangers. I am seeking to do the same with alcohol. Three years ago, I introduced the Alcohol Labelling Bill into your Lordships’ House. It went through the usual stages and was passed. Then, as is the case with most Private Members' Bills, it died the death when we could not persuade the Government to give it time in the other place.”
“In its most acute form, which affects one in 1,000 babies, its effects are similar to acute brain damage. Simply put, the brain and other organs do not develop. Children with the most severe learning disabilities are affected. Their mental age is retarded and their cognitive abilities are limited. Often, they cannot even tell the time or find their way home. As young adults, they become disruptive and often turn to crime. Many cannot even hold down the simplest of jobs. Whatever their degree of disorder, they become a cost to society. If today's mood is to cut costs, this is an easy way to do so without any downside. FASD is totally preventable and, if it is reduced, society gains. Knowledge among young women and, indeed, their partners of the damage they are running by drinking when pregnant is lamentably low.”
“This afternoon, I want to speak about a subject that I have raised in your Lordships' House several times, but with a new Government it is time to do it again. The subject is the labelling of bottles and containers warning of the dangers to the unborn foetus of its mother drinking alcohol. Briefly, the issue is this. Mothers-to-be who drink risk permanently damaging their babies. This occurs because alcohol in the mother's bloodstream passes to the foetus across the placenta. The foetus, because its organs are undeveloped, is unable to process this toxin, and major damage can occur. Foetal alcohol syndrome disorder is the name given to the complete range of disorders. In its mildest form, which affects one in a 100 live births, it can cause a series of behavioural attributes, such as acute attention deficit disorder.”
“The late Sir Clive Bourne was a personal friend of mine, and it was his amazing energy—when he was terminally ill, I add—that enabled that school to grow. In two years, the old school was demolished and the new school rebuilt, with everything that is involved in setting up a new school. It opened in 2005; five years later, we have heard about its incredible results. His widow, Lady Joy Bourne, continues to be very involved with that school. I know that everything that the Minister says about academies is true. It is equally true that with the use of laptops in schools we have provided phenomenal results. I encourage him to come to some of the schools using those laptops to see what has been achieved; I would be very happy to take him round.”
“My Lords, I, too, congratulate the Minister—the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Oareford—the noble Lords, Lord Hall of Birkenhead and Lord Kakkar, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford. Each of them gave a magnificent maiden speech today and it is to our benefit that they join us in your Lordships' House. My speech is on public health issues, but first I say a few words about education. My interest is that I am chair of an organisation called the e-Learning Foundation. We provide laptops to socially disadvantaged children; we have been amazingly successful in that. My predecessor was my noble friend Lady Morris of Yardley. I am stepping down this September and will be replaced as chairman by the Minister's soon-to-be noble friend, Phil Willis. The Minister spoke about academies and, in particular, Mossbourne Academy.”
“It would be more appropriate if we were talking about agriculture or the steel industry, but the IT and mobile industry is changing so fast that we need something that recognises that change more, dare I say it, appropriately.”
“Convergence, about which we have talked many times in this House, is now a factor of life; it is happening at a very dramatic rate. Also since the Bill was introduced, we have heard that in the United States, AT&T’s network has been struggling with the amount of data required, and O2 has reported problems coping with the amount of data on a broadband basis or mobile network basis. To return to the word “appropriate”, I want to make the point that I do not like the tone of the word. It does not feel right. It feels, as the Minister himself said in a meeting with me, as though the word is limp. It certainly does not capture the change that is taking place in this industry.”
“I do not know whether there is such a word; maybe there is. Even since the Digital Economy Bill was introduced in your Lordships’ House three months ago there have been many changes. We have had two major exhibitions in the world: the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and a month later the GSM Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. At both those events, major new products were introduced which were dramatic and will change the face of the whole industry. There have been smart phones, tablets, and of course a month ago Apple announced its iPad tablet. On the subject of Apple, last week it recorded 10 billion downloads from iTunes—nearly two for every person living on this earth. As I mentioned once before, there have been 3 billion downloads of apps for the iPhone.”
“My Lords, my noble friend the Minister has addressed many of these issues, but I still have a concern over “appropriate”. In some ways it sticks—it just does not feel right in Amendments 2, 3, 5 and 6. I want to tell noble Lords the reason for this, which is generic to this industry. I learnt something new this weekend. I came across a new word: exabyte. I have never heard that before. An exabyte is a billion gigabytes, or a billion billion bytes—it is a pretty big number. In 2005, mankind created 150 exabytes; in 2010, 1,200 were created. So, over five years the total amount of data created on earth went up by a factor of 10, and I suspect the rate of increase is going to continue on an exponential basis. If we were standing here in two or three years perhaps we would need another word for a thousand exabytes.”
“If Barack Obama was, “Yes we can”, I am afraid that HMRC is “No we can’t and never will”. There are special capital allowances on high-technology equipment. The problem is that the only people who can use them are the users and not the owners. At a time when many companies are just coming out of recession and are not generating profit but want new equipment to boost their productivity, they cannot use these benefits because they are not making a profit. The situation is crazy. With a flick of a switch, which would enable the owner or the user to use these capital allowances, it could all be changed and there would be a dramatic inflow of funds to the SME marketplace. I hope that the Minister has listened to what I have said and I will be interested to hear his answer.”
“I sold it to private equity, but I still have a small shareholding. I have regaled the Minister, my noble friend Lord Davies, with what I was going to say today and I received a sympathetic reception. I also heard what my noble friend Lord Sugar, who is not in his place, said about the SME marketplace. The leasing industry in this country is responsible for one-third of gross capital formation. In other words, of all the capital assets in this country, one-third is financed by leasing. That is very important. It gives the benefits of better cash flow, secure funding, quick decisions and no need for an overdraft. It is everything that an SME wants. It gets funds to companies quickly. It is a conduit from the banks to small companies. Yet there are tax disadvantages on which Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is being very difficult.”
“Tests can be set and pupils can use their own laptops and handhelds to reply. Feedback is instantaneous. The Government injected some early funding into Promethean. Private equity came later. I read that it is now considering an IPO. I relate this background to show that this Labour Government are able to support and have supported new industries of this sort, thus supporting the quest to make our children IT literate and to raise education standards. At the same time, they have created an environment that has caused a new British industry to flourish. It is an industry that, without question, is the best in the world. What I recount today is just one example, but there are many more. On my other topic, my whole career was in the leasing of high technology. I declare my interest. I formed a company called Syscap Ltd.”
“Every January, an exhibition called BETT—British educational training and technology—is held. I first went to BETT 10 years ago when it was very small with few attendees. Today, it is huge. The exhibitors take up all Olympia and the demand for space outstrips supply. Britain is now the world leader in education technology, by which I include education software, hardware, content and all associated services. This new industry employs 25,000 people in the UK and exports £250 million. I should like to give your Lordships just one example of a British company, Promethean, which has become a world leader in this area. The company makes intelligent whiteboards. It is now possible for teachers to run their classes using these boards on an interactive basis. Teachers can write on the boards, access the internet and show videos.”
“I may have my facts wrong, but I think that one of the targets was that in every school there had to be one computer for every seven children. That was thought to be impossible then, but today that sort of target would be laughable. There are laptops in every school and in homes they are ubiquitous. Last year, the Government announced the Home Access project, in which £300 million would be made available to ensure that children in socially disadvantaged areas had access to computers at home and at school. In this 24/7 world, education is not just confined to the classroom. Lessons can continue at home and projects can be completed in the student’s own time. As well as bringing our school children into the 21st century, the Government have spawned a new, world-beating industry—education technology.”
“British children needed to have access to computer technology at home and at school. Microsoft wanted a charity to be formed to make that happen. Noble Lords may not believe this, but it gave us a cheque for £1 million and told us not to involve it any longer but to get on with it. We set up the e-Learning Foundation. I declare my interest as its current chair. In those days, laptops were expensive, broadband did not exist and the teaching profession was highly sceptical. It was so sceptical that when the Government introduced the Laptops for Teachers initiative, it became known as the “laptops in boxes” initiative. Many computers were never opened by teachers. Those days have gone. While he was Prime Minister, Tony Blair was instrumental in setting IT targets for schools.”
“As the election approaches, people will bang on a lot about the rate of tax. It is worth saying yet again that, when this Government came into power, capital gains tax was 40 per cent. It is now 18 per cent. As an entrepreneur, I have my mind fixed on that rate, not on the rate of income tax. It is to this Government’s credit that we have kept and encouraged entrepreneurship in this way. I shall divide my speech into two sections. In the first I will talk about a great British success story—the IT education industry. In the other I will make the case yet again for the UK’s equipment-leasing industry, which I believe holds the key to increasing capital investment in these difficult days. Ten years ago, in an act of amazing generosity, Microsoft approached me and one other person with a simple request.”
“My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Sanderson, for introducing this debate. I am a serial entrepreneur and I find it reassuring that there are so many in your Lordships’ House who share my passion for this area. The noble Lord talked about rates of tax being at 98 per cent at one time. Every time I have started a business, the rates of income tax have been very high indeed—as high as he said—but that never seemed to bother me. I never thought about tax. I was always interested in being independent and setting up a business; I was interested in all the joys that come from allowing something to bloom and grow. We talk about 50 per cent tax. I do not like 50 per cent tax. If I had my way, I would put it back down to 40 per cent and tax bankers’ bonuses by 80 per cent. We would probably be better off.”
“Our campus objectives for 2010 are that we will provide conflict resolution training, develop student leadership skills and appoint campus representatives and ambassadors at key universities. Now I shall tell your Lordships what we will not be doing: we will not get into any discussions about the Middle East. The situation is complicated enough and nothing much that we can do can change it. We are concerned about British Muslims and British Jews. Our role, indeed, is to make the UK a more tolerant society. We are all lucky to live in this wonderful country. It is a beacon of tolerance to the world and long may it remain so.”
“The laws in this country are pretty tough on the subject of racism; there are plenty of weapons should they choose to use them, but they seldom do. We can bemoan the situation or we can do something about it. Those who know me know that there is nothing that I like better than a challenge. The Coexistence Trust is absolutely balanced between Jews and Muslims; our trustees, our donors and our staff all come from both communities. We visit campuses with a simple message: racism and discrimination have no place in our society. We actively encourage Jewish and Muslim students to get to know one another. After all, our backgrounds are not that dissimilar; all of us are sons and daughters of immigrants.”
“Religious Jews wearing any form of dress that identifies them as being Jewish are sometimes attacked. I can tell noble Lords of many instances where stickers saying things such as “Death to Jews” have been displayed at some of our leading campuses and have been slow to be removed. It is not a good scene. Muslims also have a difficult time. Issues such as dietary observance and exams being held on religious holidays cause problems for them. I have raised these issues with university officials. They tell me that it is difficult for them, that universities thrive on free speech and that they are loath to get involved. Well, who can object to free speech? On the other hand, the universities have a legal duty of care towards their students, but in many cases they are slow to uphold this duty.”
“At this point I must pay tribute first to CST but also to the police forces up and down this country that work hand in hand with the Jewish community, particularly the Metropolitan Police, which gets such a bad time from other quarters but which has done amazing things in this direction. Anti-Semitism is unacceptable for most people, but anti-Zionist or anti-Israeli attitudes have become its barely concealed proxy. That is what makes people very worried. I am chair of an organisation called the Coexistence Trust. Our mission is to be united against intolerance. Our focus is on Muslim-Jewish relations, particularly on university campuses in the UK. Noble Lords may again be surprised to learn that there is a problem and that there are campuses in our country that Jews prefer to avoid.”
“I do not want to overstate the case, but many Jewish friends have said to me that they feel more frightened and threatened than at any time in their lives. Instances of anti-Semitic attacks are up. Some attacks are verbal, others are physical, but the trend is rising. Of course, many of the attacks are linked to the situation in the Middle East. Jews are held by some to be supporters of the more extreme elements in Israel and, when there is a south Lebanon or Gaza conflict, attacks on British Jews go up. Noble Lords may not be aware that for many years all synagogues have had constant security patrols. At most Jewish social events, you will see Community Security Trust-trained personnel prominently watching and checking.”
“The city of my birth and my continuous home is truly the city of the world, matched only by New York, and in many regards I think that we are even more multi-ethnic than New York is. I am sure that that is why we were awarded the Olympic Games. The world will be astounded in 2012 when it realises just how culturally diverse this city has become. Foreigners are staggered when they come to London—from the female immigration official wearing a hijab to the customs officer with a turban, to the mixed-race couples walking hand in hand on our streets, to the blasé way that we regard gays and lesbians. We simply do not care, and isn’t it wonderful? So it may well come as quite a shock to learn that the Jewish community in this country feels under constant attack.”
“She and her generation had to endure continuous anti-Semitism, most notably during the Mosley marches in the 1930s. Knowing what Hitler was advocating in Germany, can your Lordships imagine how they must have felt watching the fascists march in the East End? Before the war, some of our leading authors, poets and academics were openly anti-Semitic. Our leading public schools thought that they were being liberal when they imposed a 10 per cent Jewish quota on admissions. Indeed, some still do. I say all this as a Jew but I know that other minorities suffered similar indignities. Maybe it was simply the inevitable consequence of being immigrants in a very white Christian country. Today in the 21st century, the London that I left no longer exists.”
“Jews have a strong presence in that city and in those days more Jews lived in New York than in Israel. I was staggered at Hanukkah to see the local branch of the Chase Manhattan Bank with menorah candles in the shop front. That was unheard of in London. Had I been Irish, Puerto Rican or Afro-American, I am sure that I would have had a similar sensation. It made me feel very provincial, having left a London that then was very white and very homogeneous. Sure I was Jewish, but we were a small minority nestling in the outer reaches of north-west London. I remember my mother telling me how, as a 15 year-old, she could not get a job as a shop assistant at C&A in Oxford Street. The people there unashamedly told her that it was because her surname was Cohen and they had a policy of not employing Jews.”
“My Lords, God bless the British public: it seems that there will be no reform of the House of Lords. I thank my noble friend Lord Harrison for his introduction to this debate, which was full of content, uplifting and, on a very gloomy and grey day out there, very cheery. In 1964, as a very excited 21 year-old, I left London for New York. I had been accepted for a postgraduate degree at Columbia University and I could hardly contain myself. One of the first things that struck me on my arrival was that I had dropped into the centre of the world’s greatest melting pot. I had never seen such a melange of faces, colours, languages and restaurants—each community with its own strong sense of identity, culture and political power. For a Jew, New York was a wonder to behold.”
“I know for a fact that some of the films on which voting has occurred have already been uploaded to the internet and are being downloaded. There is no question that this is a tremendous problem. To young people, the big film and music companies are often seen as the enemy, as bodies which have charged exorbitant prices for their products over time, so there is no sense of guilt about downloading. This is something we should think about in our deliberations this evening.”
“We then come on to illegal file-sharing and downloading of music, movies and so on, which, of course, every single child in this country is doing—you would be hard pressed to find any person under the age of 25 who is not illegally downloading. We should face up to that issue. We will talk today about legislation that will preclude this, and fines and all sorts of people becoming involved. There is a huge danger here. A huge group of our people are doing something that they do not think is wrong or a crime. It is dangerous for us to be putting into effect legislation that puts a whole lot of people in a criminal situation when they do not think that they are committing a crime. One interesting thing: this is the time when people are voting on the movies that are going to win BAFTA awards and the Oscars in America.”
“My Lords, like the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, I may be in danger of saying something that applies to other amendments as well, but since this is the very beginning of the debate on file-sharing, perhaps I may make my points now and return to them later. One of the things that I do is go round schools and talk to young children about general business ethics. We talk about all sorts of things that people should and should not do in the business workplace. When we come to summing-up time, I always ask how many of them steal—I do not ask them to raise their hands; I just ask them to talk on the subject of stealing. Of course, they all say that they do not steal.”
“The wording of the duties for Ofcom uses the word “appropriate”. I think that the word “appropriate” is totally inappropriate for the requirements of Ofcom. “Appropriate” is a word that you might use for the steel industry, but not for an industry that is growing so fast. When the clause is redrafted, I ask my noble friend for some wording that recognises the sheer growth of this industry and its potential growth in future.”
“A year and a half ago, Apple announced the product called apps—applications—to go on the iPhone. Today, just 18 months later, there are 130,000 applications for the iPhone. I read yesterday that 3 billion downloads—that is one for every two people on this planet—have occurred. That is a measure of the truly phenomenal growth of this industry. Yesterday, Google announced a smart phone product, and it is rumoured that Apple itself will in the next few weeks announce a totally different product, an iTablet. That all means that these handheld mobile devices will be gulping huge amounts of broadband capability; amounts that we cannot even contemplate. That will be truly massive. There will be a convergence of television broadcasting, books, movies and anything you care to mention available on those products.”
“My Lords, I was unable to be here for Second Reading—I was travelling. I had things that I wanted to say but cannot at this stage. I need to make a declaration. First, I am chairman of a charity called the e-Learning Foundation, which is responsible for all children in this country, especially those from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, having laptops. I am also a shareholder in a company called Syscap, which is an IT services company, and I hold a significant shareholding in Apple. I have been in the IT industry for 43 years—I started in the very early days, and have seen a thing or two in my life—but the most dramatic thing to me is that the IT industry, instead of going into middle age and slowing down, seems to have reverted to adolescence and is growing faster and more frenetically than ever. Look at a product such as the iPhone.”
“A few years ago, in your Lordships' House, my noble friend the Minister stated that by the end of 2008 it would be compulsory, on a voluntary basis, for—”
“I shall start again. The Minister said that the alcohol industry would have labelling on all bottles, on a voluntary basis, on the danger of drinking while pregnant. The year 2008 has come and gone, and we now hear that wine is stronger. Will this be made mandatory?”
“To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they are making to the European Union to reduce the cost of mobile roaming charges on data within the European Union.”
“My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. It is encouraging that these prices are coming down, but data roaming charges in the EU are still twice those of voice roaming charges, which are significantly more than domestic prices. It strikes me that that is something of a rip-off. In a world of Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and all the rest of it, it is essential that these prices are brought down. First, what are the plans to have these prices reduced further? Secondly, it appears that these network operators are acting in concert. Are there any plans within the EU to investigate their activities?”
“The 2002 Arab peace initiative offered Israel full diplomatic relations with all 22 Arab states if it withdrew to the 1967 borders. I believe that this document should be the platform on which all future peace negotiations should be based.”
“The first, of course, is the United States, re-energised by a new President determined to engage in the region and supported by the wisdom and expertise of Secretary Clinton and regional envoy George Mitchell. Only America can bring Israel to the table, because only America fully understands Israel’s concerns. This time next week, there will be a new Israeli Prime Minister. It will probably be Mr Netanyahu, and I know how people feel about that, but Israel tends to withdraw and make peace only with a right-wing Prime Minister. The second state is Egypt, which suddenly has become a diplomatic powerhouse. It has strong influence over Gaza, which it used to rule until 1967. The third state, Jordan, is 50 per cent Palestinian. It, too, ruled the West Bank until the Six-Day War. Finally, there is Saudi Arabia.”
“Sometimes it is by their words that we can best detect where certain nations stand. On the subject of Hamas, there has been an eerie silence. In the recent war, where was the condemnation from Jordan, Egypt or Saudi Arabia? Indeed, where was the Palestinian Authority? They were all very quiet. Of course they voiced their concerns at the horrors of the destruction, but for Hamas there were no words. Why? Because they loathe Hamas. Often in the Middle East, things become much clearer after a storm, and today we face a different world from the one that existed in December. Perhaps that is a positive sign. Four countries can have a key role in moving the region forward.”
“My Palestinian sources tell me of rockets and artillery located in their own homes, but they are frightened to go public because their lives and those of their families might be at risk. I have another quotation: “Hamas gangs are unleashed like packs of animals on the streets of Gaza against Fatah members. Because the military bases and the prisons have been destroyed, they have turned Gaza schools, Al-Nasser Hospital, the radiology department at Shifa' Hospital, the Al-Aqsa University, and other places, including mosques, into centers for the detention, interrogation, and torture of Fatah members and members of other national Palestinian factions”. This statement was made on 22 January this year by the secretary of the PLO executive committee, Yasser Abd Rabbo.”
“A Times reporter wrote: “Rarely, in more than a decade of war reporting from Bosnia, Chechnya, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, have I seen such deliberate destruction, such disrespect for human life”. The Guardian —always the Guardian —said: “Israel’s actions in Jenin are every bit as repellent as 9/11”. Does it not all sound so familiar? A few weeks later, the Palestinian Authority admitted that there had been 56 Palestinian dead, of whom all but three were combatants. There was embarrassment all round, but memories fade fast. When we hear all these condemnations of illegal white phosphorous and pre-meditated attacks on schools and hospitals, we should await the evidence.”
“How can Israel negotiate with a Palestinian people who are split into three pieces: one faction in Ramallah, another in Gaza and yet another living a gilded life and pulling the strings in Damascus? This debate is bound to dwell on the terrible plight of the civilian population in Gaza, and so it should, but I commend the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, in a recent debate, who said that we should wait for the evidence before we rush to judgment. In 2002, following a spate of suicide bombings that originated from Jenin on the West Bank, the IDF launched Operation Defensive Shield. Immediately, the world was up in arms. “The massacre of Jenin”, was the cry of the world’s media. “Three thousand civilians have been killed”. Then the figure was reduced to 500. “They have been butchered by the marauding Israelis”.”
“This is in its charter. If it is not true and this is not what it believes, it should remove it from its charter. Hamas is an organisation that says that it will not recognise Israel, renounce violence or adhere to past agreements that were negotiated by the Palestinian Authority. It has a single objective: a one-state Palestine from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean, with no Israel but no Fatah either. It wants its Palestine, and it wants it to be part of the Islamic caliphate. That is why it is categorised as a terrorist organisation by us, by the Americans, by the EU, by Canada, by Japan and by Australia, so to noble Lords who advocate a two-state solution and insist on adherence to the road map I say think again. While Hamas sticks to its charter, a two-state outcome is simply pie in the sky.”
“Do not take my word for it; listen to their own words. The Hamas Charter is not what I would call bedtime reading but it is worth a glance, as it is interesting: “The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up”. It continues: “Today it is Palestine, tomorrow it will be one country or another. The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying”.”
“We have kept the Middle East off the agenda; it is not an easy thing to do, but we have managed to talk about other issues to do with being British and Jewish and being British and Muslim, and how important it is for us to continue our work, with everything else that is going on in the world at this juncture. I read the Jewish Chronicle this morning, although it is not my normal reading, and was horrified to hear of some of the activities at our universities. There is a quotation—I cannot believe it is true—where an Oxford academic said this week that in five years’ time he was hopeful that Oxford would become a Jewish-free zone. Nice, yes? We have heard a lot today about Hamas. There are a lot of rose-tinted glasses worn in regard to that organisation. I would like to say a little more about Hamas; they are really not nice people.”
“My Lords, I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, is in his place, because it gives me the opportunity totally to ruin his weekend: not only did the noble Lord, Lord Wright of Richmond, commend him on his speech, but I found what he said particularly illuminating. I will study what he said in Hansard and deliberate over some very wise words. I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, and the wise words she spoke. Along with various other Members of this House and the House of Commons, she has joined me in the Coexistence Trust going to various universities—we started with five—as a group of Muslims and Jews to discuss the issues common to all of us.”