Proscription of Hezbollah — House of Commons, 2018-01-25
Topic: International Affairs
Ian Austin (Labour, Centre-left): That is correct, and the point was made eloquently by the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee earlier. The hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) goes to the middle east a lot; he knows a lot of people there. He is an expert on the region and what he says is worth listening to. I hope that Ministers will be listening to the advice that they have just been given Analysts warn that the next conflict between Israel and Hezbollah "will likely be the most destructive Arab-Israel war yet." Israel’s military believes that, in a future conflict, Hezbollah will be able to launch 1,500 rockets and missiles a day. Israel has increased its defensive capabilities, but Hezbollah is likely to target military facilities, important infrastructure and civilian population centres In the past, Nasrallah has threatened that Hezbollah will attack an ammonia storage facility in Haifa and a nuclear reactor at Dimona. The week before last, I was in Haifa, which is just over 20 miles from the border with Lebanon and is the site of Israel’s oil refinery, making it one of Hezbollah’s main targets. Imagine the carnage, devastation and civilians deaths that could result in a future conflict when Hezbollah start to rain down missiles on Haifa from just a few miles away, as it has done in the past Sadly, Israel’s experience in southern Lebanon was repeated in Gaza. Israel signed an agreement with the Palestinian Authority on movement and access to Gaza, which gave the Palestinians control over their borders for the first time in history, allowed imports and exports, and approved the construction of a seaport and discussions on an airport. Israel pulled out of Gaza but, just as in Lebanon, an Islamist movement, a terrorist organisation, a powerful armed militia—this time Hamas, also equipped by Iran and just as committed to Israel’s destruction as Hezbollah—launched a coup, banned elections, drove out Fatah, threw fellow Palestinians from the rooftops, summarily executed people outside mosques after Friday prayers and declared themselves the new rulers of Gaza, saying that they would use the strip as a base to destroy Israel. The unilateral withdrawal of 8,500 Israelis from Gaza was met not by peace but, after Hamas’s brutal takeover, by rockets and attack tunnels. When we look at the experience in Lebanon and in Gaza, we can understand why, whether or not people in this Chamber like it, the Israelis are very reticent about pulling out of the west bank As we have just heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), the Iranian proxy Hezbollah poses a significant threat to security and stability in the middle east—explicitly the whole middle east, not just Israel. My second point is that Hezbollah has played a particularly pernicious and powerful role in the internal affairs of Lebanon. Its armed forces have been described as more effective than Lebanon’s army and its military power is occasionally used to pressurise the Lebanese Government, allowing Iran to exercise influence in the country. Once seen as a state within a state, Hezbollah’s growing influence in Lebanon threatens to draw Israel’s northern neighbour, and its army, into any future conflict My third point is that, as we have heard, Hezbollah’s so-called resistance against Israel is influenced by its deeply anti-Semitic ideology. The group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah has said that if Jews "all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide." He has also suggested: "God imprinted blasphemy on the Jews’ hearts." Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Naim Qassem, has said that "the history of Jews has proven that, regardless of the Zionist proposal, they are a people who are evil in their ideas." The late Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, one of Hezbollah’s most influential figures, peddled anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Jews. He declared: "The Jews want to be a world superpower…the Jews will work on the basis that Jewish interests are above all world interests." I have criticised the Government for not proscribing Hezbollah, but I also wish to address some remarks to my party. In 2009, at a meeting of the so-called Stop the War Coalition, which must be the worst or most inappropriately named organisation in British politics, the leader of the Labour party said that he had invited "friends" from Hamas and Hezbollah to an event in Parliament. Later, when asked why he had called them friends, he said: "I use it in a collective way, saying our friends are prepared to talk." He also said: "There is not going to be a peace process unless there is talks involving Israel, Hezbollah and Hamas" First, who would describe a racist, fascistic and terrorist organisation like Hezbollah as friends? Social democrats—indeed, all democrats—should always be crystal clear about how they describe totalitarian movements and Governments, whether that is Hezbollah or, for instance, the Iranian dictatorship that backs Hezbollah Secondly, the statements by the leaders of Hezbollah make it very clear that they have absolutely no interest in the negotiations and compromises that could lead to peace. The idea that Hezbollah is a partner for peace is utterly misguided. Its contribution to the Oslo peace process was to threaten to murder Jewish tourists and businessmen visiting Arab countries that normalised their relations with Israel. Even if we were to set all that to one side, I do not think that the leadership of our party has shown the same interest in speaking to the Israelis. Invitations to meet the leaders of Labour’s own sister party, who have repeatedly invited our leader to visit Israel and talk to them about their plans to bring the conflict to an end, have not been accepted The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is enormously difficult and complex.There are no easy answers. If there were, they would have been found by now. However, some elements are clearer than others, and the case of Hezbollah is one of them. This is an anti-Semitic, racist terror group—acting at the behest of Iran—which wishes to drive Jews from the middle east and murder Jews around the world. Hezbollah is part of the problem; it will never be part of the solution. That is why this House and our Government should agree today to proscribe it in its entirety.