Britannia Radio

David Miliband took part in a debate on the important issues in the Middle East during an event organised by the Jewish News on Thursday 22 October. 

The issues discussed focused on the UK's relationship with Israel, the Middle East Peace Process, Afghanistan, and Iran.

Read the transcript

Justin Cohen:  I’m Justin Cohen, News Editor at the Jewish News and I’m delighted to welcome you here today to the second of our question and answer sessions with senior political figures. We’re delighted and privileged to have the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, in the hot seat tonight.

At the Jewish News and Media Group we pride ourselves on being a community newspaper with our finger on the pulse of communal views and needs. Just last weekend nearly fifteen hundred people descended on our, on our annual (indistinct) fair providing a one stop shop for those planning a wedding or Bar Mitzvah. 

And tonight it is a tremendous honour to provide community members with this unique forum to put their questions and concerns to one of the most senior figures in the British Cabinet, the man who has played a central role in Britain’s foreign policy decision making.

This event is especially poignant given that David Miliband is Britain’s first Jewish Home Secretary, oh Foreign Secretary. Is that a demotion?

David Miliband (DM):  I’ll tell you a funny story about that later.

JC:  It is a fact that he has never shied away from and in 2007 he even played host to the Foreign Office, the Foreign Office’s first Hanukkah celebrations.

But it is David Miliband’s work on the world stage and, more broadly, the work of the Foreign Office in general that frequently occupy our readers’ thoughts. This is evidenced by the letters we regularly receive from readers querying Government policy on Israel and the Middle East, whether the peace process, plans to label West Bank goods or, most recently, the Goldstone Report.

I’m not entirely sure that the Foreign Secretary will agree with me on this particularly when he sees the front page of this week’s newspaper where there has rarely been a better moment for this session to take place.  We’re so grateful to the London Jewish Cultural Centre for hosting this event and to Sky News Political Editor Adam Boulton who will be chairing tonight’s session.

One of the most respected journalists in Britain Adam has reported from every continent other than Antarctica and has interviewed the last eight Prime Ministers.  We’re so grateful to you Adam for giving up your time to be here tonight.  Adam over to you.

Adam Boulton (AB): Good evening ladies and gentlemen I thought I’d better just check up on the front page of the Jewish News.  I’m, thank you Justin I’m very sorry that as Eddie isn’t here tonight, I wish him well from his sick bed and also the best of luck in Australia.

Now I am simply here to facilitate or moderate this evening, I have nothing to say on my own account so after that splendid introduction to the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, I’m going to simply ask him first of all to just give us, I think they call it a tour de raison don’t they in the Foreign Office.

DM:  Well I’m not going to do that actually but the, I’m just going to say why I’m pleased to be here. There are two reasons that I’m pleased to be here and I just want to refer to them. The first is that there is a lot of talk in Britain today about community, about how you build community, about you sustain community, about how you combine distinctive identity, often faith identities but not only faith identities, with engagement with the wider society. 

And to people who say that we have to make a choice between our distinctive identities for our faith or for other aspects of our own identity and our national identity, our engagement with British society, I say come and look at the Jewish community of the UK which for three hundred and fifty years has been proud and celebrated its own distinctive identity but has also played a massive role in the development of our country over the last three hundred and fifty years.

In business, in politics, in the arts you name it this is a community that has been proud of being Jewish but also proud of being British and I think that’s a very important point to emphasise and to rebut this pernicious false choice that says that you can’t have a personal identity and a commitment to the national identity.  I think it’s important that I, it’s important that I say that as a Member of Parliament but also as Foreign Secretary.

The second thing is related to that. This is a (indistinct) community, it seems to me in my experience, which is deeply rooted but also deeply internationalist.  There’s one of my favourite poems, it’s a Hebrew poem actually, it’s entitled Roots and Wings which is, some of you may know the poem, and it, it’s about the idea that deep roots of your own are not an alternative to having broad horizons, are not an alternative to thinking broadly but are actually the basis of doing so.

And it seems to me that this is a community that’s marked by its internationalism as well as its localism and its commitment to our country and, of course, that internationalism is focused in the Middle East. It’s focused on Britain’s relationship with Israel, on Israel’s ability not just to defend itself but to advance it, its civilisation.  And the achievements of Israel over the last sixty two years have been remarkable by any stretch of the imagination, not just in democracy and judiciary but in science, in education and the arts.  It’s important always to remind people of that.

It’s also important to remind people I think that almost whenever you hear of a natural disaster around the world, be it an earthquake or a hurricane there are Israeli teams helping, there is Israeli aid going there helping and I think that’s an important thing to remind people of because it speaks to the internationalism of Israel as well as to the internationalism of the Jewish community here.

Obviously every Foreign Secretary who has talked to Britain’s Jewish communities over the last forty years has been, has said it’s a very serious time, it’s a very difficult time, it’s a very serious situation and that’s true today and it will be wrong to deny that. The insecurities and instabilities of the Middle East are profound, the sense of fear that many in Israel have and many friends of Israel have is real. 

It is centred on Iran and above all the appalling, abominable commentary provided by the President of Iran on, on Israel and its citizens but I think it’s, it’s right to, to emphasise that and to understand that but it’s also important not to be cowed by it.  Because, actually, the international community stands with Israel against Iranian threats rather retreating from it and that’s may be something we can talk about tonight.

Of course Iran isn’t the only issue in the Middle East, there is Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians, with Syria, with the Syrians, with other parts of the Arab world and I look forward to discussing that as well.  I’m sure our conversation won’t be confined only to the Middle East and I’m sure my knowledge of far flung parts of the world will be tested. 

But one of the things that I think is remarkable, it’s borne in many aspects of tragedy, but wherever you go in the world you’ll find the Jewish community, if you come to my constituency in South Shields you’ll find not an active synagogue but you will find a historic synagogue actually which now, now no longer a synagogue. 

But in far flung places of the world almost every one of the countries I, the forty eight countries I’ve been to you’ll find part of the Jewish heritage and Jewish history and that’s part of the internationalism of the community as well and I look forward to discussing that tonight too.  Thank you very much indeed.

Question: My question is that you stood by just now your definition of Operation (indistinct) as disproportionate because of the numbers of people killed.  I’d like to know if Britain was bombarded with rockets launched in to civilian areas from those who hide behind their civilian population how long you would wait before launching a counter-strike in order to be proportionate. 

Would you wait eight minutes, eight days, eight weeks, eight months or as Israel did eight years? And how do you justify using the numbers of people killed as a measure of proportionality when it's well documented that Hamas deliberately hides behind its civilians whereas Israel deliberately protects its civilians making that particular measure of proportionality pretty false?

DM: Well there's no one measure of proportionality. There's no one measure of proportionality but the fact that twelve hundred people were killed including four hundred children is part of the reckoning. 

But let's take on the distinction between Hamas and Israel because I think we should take on that distinction. We never should put Hamas and Israel on the same basis because we expect Hamas to try to use civilians as a shield. 

We never expect and we wouldn't and I was surprised that you put them in the same sentence because terrorist organisations should be and are held to different standards than democratic states and democratic Governments and Israel is proud of its, rightly proud of its democratic history, it's rightly proud actually of its history of independent investigations of its own, of allegations that are made against it and it was interesting that Minister Meridor was reported in one of the Israeli newspapers as saying that he favoured an independent inquiry into the allegations that had been raised by the Goldstone Report reflecting the history.

I think it's Supreme Court Justice Barak who's got a particular history of investigating these allegations in Israel and we should never put democratic states on the same plane as terrorist organisations, they are held to different standards, and the standards that democratic states are held to are higher for good reason in my view.

AB:  Okay I think that’s Charlie Woolf back there, yes.

Charlie Woolf (Jewish News): I write for the Jewish News and broadcast commentator. By what you've just said my inference of is in essence you're excusing terrorist groups. You're saying they, they are held to a different standard; that you're almost expecting Hamas to act as Hamas does.

And yes you are right democracy should be held to a higher standard but what worries me is when I look at for instance not even voting on the Goldstone Report last week. We have a fellow democracy, this is not a Jewish issue as far as I'm concerned, we have a fellow democracy that has been attacked by terrorism and gets it daily.  This is not just one attack on 9/11 or on 7/7 as we've had here this is an almost daily attack.

And I find it surprising, because I've heard the same sort of words from Barack Obama in the States, where there's this comparison made of arguments like proportionality. I don't remember arguments of proportionality during the Dresden bombings or the bombing of Hiroshima. We had to kill out an ugly and evil system that was bad not only to the Japanese as well as ourselves.

DM: I think that it's important not to allow the interpretation that you've put. Hamas is to be condemned for all of its actions. It is to be isolated for its actions.  It is to be rejected for its actions. They are a terrorist organisation and that's why they're rejected by the international community. 

That is not to somehow excuse what Hamas does which is an inversion of what I said and quite wrong and not. I don't think there's anyone in the British politics who is excusing the actions of Hamas and I've never heard President Obama or anyone else excusing the actions of Hamas. So it's important to be clear about that.

I think there is another aspect which is that Israel has for a long time said, rightly, that it wants a credible partner for peace in the Middle East and it's also rightly been said by successive Israeli Prime Ministers, I think including this one, certainly the one, that the combination of President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad give them the best partnership that they've had for a very, very long time in trying to work on that. 

I think that in that context the, there's one set of tests which are applied in respect of international law for the Gaza operation, there's another set of tests which are defined in terms of Israel's security and its ability to defend itself and its ability to establish a two state solution which I believe, and I think now the Prime Minister of Israel has said he believes as well, is in the interests of Israel's security. 

So there is a test of principle and there is a test of pragmatism as well and I think that's the test that needs to be applied in respect of all operations, military and otherwise.

AB: And just on the vote in the UN last week.

DM: Yes.

AB: What was the thinking on that?

DM: Well we were in the, the Prime Minister and President Sarkozy were in the midst of detailed discussions with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel on the issue of the establishment of an independent inquiry which is being debated by the Israeli Cabinet it transpires at the moment. 

And we were clear that it was impossible to vote for the resolution because it was unbalanced in all sorts of ways and that's why we and France said that the vote should not have happened while there was negotiation, discussion taking place with the Prime Minister of Israel. 

And that's the basis on which we said that we weren't going to participate in this because it would compromise the work that was going on in three important areas.  One of which is to do with the establishment of an independent inquiry, the second of which is to do with the access to Gaza and the third of which is to do with the resumption of a proper peace process in the Middle East. 

AB: And you would have seen abstaining as being in some ways supportive of the vote?

DM: No, I mean, to abstain is not to support or to vote against ...

AB: So why not do it?

DM: because we were in the middle of serious discussions with the Prime Minister of Israel and I think that's a reasonable position to hold.

AB: Gentleman in the corner there, yes right there. 

Stephen Shaw: I think you've just dealt with it actually but my name is Stephen Shaw. I was just wondering if the resolution for the proposal was indeed unbalanced and unhelpful, why didn't you veto it and simply to say because we were involved in discussions with the Prime Minister of Israel at the time is not really an answer is it?

DM:  Well no, there is a substantive point to be added to that which is that there are, there are real issues raised by the Goldstone Report, real issues that we think merit the independent full and transparent inquiry that has served Israel rightly and well in the past and which as I say Minister Meridor and others support.

Unidentified Speaker:

DM: Well I'm glad you raise Afghanistan because when I spoke to Ehud Barak last week he said to me mark my words, what about the position in Afghanistan, and many of you if not all of you are British citizens and it's important that you know about what's going on in Afghanistan as well as in the Middle East because what's done in Afghanistan is done in your name …
Unidentified Speaker:  (Indistinct) inquiries.

DM:  … just, the answer actually is yes and I'm about to explain to you why and it's very, very important that you do understand this because there have been civilian casualties in Afghanistan and they have been very, very deleterious for British efforts in Afghanistan and in the first few years there weren't proper mechanisms for independent full inquiries into allegations of civilian casualties and now there are.

So every serious allegation of civilian casualties in Afghanistan has a proper full independent inquiry associated with it at British instigation and with full British support.  Why do we do that?  Because we know the corrosive affect on a population, of the rumour mill but also sometimes the facts of civilian casualties. 

So your government in your name has stood up strongly for the principle that when our Armed Forces are involved in conflict and there are serious allegations of civilian casualties because we're a democratic Government that should be held to higher standards we get them independently investigated. That is the right thing to do.
And I was able to say to Ehud Barak very, very plainly that we believe it is right for Governments like ours and countries like ours to hold full independent inquires. 

So I'm glad you raise the Afghan example and I'm glad it gives me the chance to say to a hundred and fifty people here that your Government, when it acts in your name, expects to be held accountable, accountable to our own domestic law and accountable to international law and obligations that we hold and I think it's the right thing to do.

And there will be inquiries that find out that mistakes have been made and things have gone wrong but it's the right thing to do, to hold independent inquiries when you're in an armed conflict as we are in Afghanistan.

AB: Let’s go to the lady there, wait for the microphone please.

Rosalind Pine RP: Mr Miliband good evening I’m Rosalind Pine.

DM: Hello.

RP: My name is Rosalind Pine. The question I want to ask you is about the so called illegal status of the so called settlements. I appreciate that every country has interests first and foremost but at some point you must realise that the interests of the United Kingdom is to be truthful in this matter. 

And it's not a question of opinion, I know that your position is that Great Britain regards the settlements as illegal, but as a matter of law, international law it's absolutely clear cut from the 1922 Mandate for Palestine document and many other judgments, Stephen Schwebel of the International Court in The Hague, that the settlements are simply not illegal and in fact more so some of these so called settlements actually are on land which was legally purchased in the '20s by Jews like the Etzion Block and they were evicted from there.

So what my question is to you is, you know, in the last part of your ministerial career why not be courageous, why not stand up for the truth and why not admit that the, that the settlements are legal which they are?

AB: Okay thank you.

Monroe Palmer: Can I just go back to one of the previous questions on [the] Human-Rights Council - not a vote for, not a vote against, not an abstention – but let's go beyond that: 

Would you like to comment on the actual Goldstone Report because the Goldstone Report – if I could just in two or three words – to many people it seemed flawed, his methodology was flawed, many of the people who were members of that panel / tribunal had already indicated beforehand that they were biased.  Do you not think this was / Britain, the UK should have come out forcibly about the Goldstone Report being flawed?

DM: To be fair to the Government we have actually pointed out the flaws. The original resolution that launched the Goldstone report did not include a reference to the alleged crimes by Hamas. It needed to. Judge Goldstone made the decision, rightly in my view that he had to look at allegations against Hamas as well as allegations against Israel and he did so. 

There is then an argument did he do it with sufficient space and time in the Report and I think you can make an argument he didn't give sufficient space to that. So that's a second aspect of the flaw.

Thirdly there are some issues of methodology and some legal issues, again where I am advised where there are the queries certainly about the legal approach and that's why we've pointed that out publicly as well.

I think however there are two aspects where I disagree with those critics of the Goldstone Report. First of all there's been a lot of attacks on Judge Goldstone himself. There's been quite a lot of playing of the man rather than playing of the ball and I don't think that's been very sensible. I think that Judge Goldstone has shown himself over the years to be an extremely principled person – he's actually been the head of the global ORT – many of you will know the ORT organisation. 

I think that attacking him personally rather than engaging on the actual issues that he's raised has been wrong.  Secondly in the 575 page Report of which I've read the 66 page executive summary there are substantial and serious issues and allegations that are raised by that Report that I think do need to be addressed and that's why we have said that they should be addressed and I think that's the balance that we've tried to strike. There are flaws with it but there also serious aspects to it.

Mike Freer: Could I turn to Iran:  Given that Iran meets the three criteria that you mentioned a few minutes ago, do you not believe that we should give tacit or overt approval to Israel making a pre-emptive strike? Do you think we should support Israel in a pre-emptive strike to destroy its nuclear capability?

DM: I think we should be 100% focused on a diplomatic resolution of the Iranian nuclear weapons programme and we should be pursuing that with real drive and determination and that's what we're doing.  I think that Iran's nuclear programme is a real threat to Middle Eastern and therefore global security. 

It threatens a nuclear arms race in the Middle East as well as the fears in Israel about its own security and that's why we should be very focused on it which we are.  I think it's not wise to deviate from the commitment to a diplomatic solution. I've never taken things off the table but I always say to people look at what I do say, not at what I don't say and what I say is that it's in everybody's interest that we focus very very hard on a diplomatic resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue. 

And I think that there have been some developments today in respect of something called the Tehran research reactor proposal.  This is a proposal that we've been party to putting which is that the low enriched uranium that Iran has acquired through its Natanz facility should be exported from Iran, fabricated in Russia and then in France or possibly in Argentina and then used for medical purposes in Iran.  Now that is a proposal which in a way says to Iran look, you're saying / your words say that you want only a civilian programme; well here's a chance to prove it. 

And the IAEA have given Iran until tomorrow – today's Thursday, so until tomorrow evening – to respond and I think we should see this as an important test because I think it is a significant proposal.  The proposal on the table would lead to the export of I think 60 or 70% of Iran's low enriched uranium that it's accumulated over the last twenty years from that country, so I think it's quite a significant proposal.

AB: And what do you make of today's report about the informal contacts between the Israeli atomic authorities and the Iranians?

DM: Well one of the things about diplomacy is that you have to – a bit like cricket; you have to decide which balls to play and which balls not to play – and when they refer to informal contacts between countries it's better not to play those particular balls.  I think we should leave that to the rumour mill for the moment.

Jerry Lewis [Israel Radio / Vice President - Board of Deputies]: Could I just take this opportunity on behalf of the community to thank you for your willingness throughout your stewardship of being Foreign Secretary to meet with Jewish audiences and listen to the concerns of our community.  We are very very grateful.

Sometime ago Sir you referred not to a two-state solution, not to a twenty-two state solution but if I recall correctly a fifty-two state solution of / it was the idea of the ...

DM: I'll answer the question but I didn't say that:

Jerry Lewis: There is a lot of pressure on Israel over its settlement policy and that's an issue which is being raised constantly.  Could you give us an inkling of how much pressure is being placed on the Arab world to live up to their obligations if they're going to be part of the final peace agreement which will encompass the Israelis and Palestinians?

DM: It's important this because in the end the Palestinians can't give Israel what it craves which is security in its own region. Only the 22 states of the Arab League including Palestine can do that and what I have talked about is a 23 state solution in which the relations of the 22 Arab states including Palestine with Israel, that it's not just recognition of Israel but there's normalisation of relations in which Israel is able to live in peace and the Palestinians are able to have their state.

That is the proposal in the Arab peace initiative. That is the vision of the Arab peace initiative which was launched in 2002 and which I think didn't get sufficient engagement from the West at the time. Funnily enough or ironically enough Shimon Peres has basically said the same thing - it didn't get proper / it didn't get sufficient engagement because for the first time the whole of the Arab world was saying normalisation of relations with Israel is the goal in the context of the creation of a Palestinian State and that's why I think it was a signal change.

It's actually the King of Jordan who's talked about a 57 state solution because he says he's got the Organisation of Islamic Conference to sign up to that. So that's the context of it.

There is a lot of pressure on the Arab countries on normalisation but it will only be triggered by the settlement freeze - that's the deal at the heart of this trigger that's being sought for the negotiations - and you will get, there are Arab states ready to normalise parts of their relations with Israel on the road to full normalisation but only when they get progress on this settlement issue.

But I still think given the Syrian issue that's still outstanding, given Lebanon’s border with Israel and the issue of Hizbullah there are many, many reasons to argue that you need a regional approach, not just a bilateral Israeli-Palestinian approach if you're going to solve this. 

My own view is it won't be solved on a two-state basis and it won't be solved on a 23 state basis and I think that's why the engagement with the Arab world by countries like the UK is important. 

Robert Smith: Can you say something about the challenges of being a Jewish Foreign Secretary having direct contacts with the Arabs nations and what would say on the prospects of Britain having a Jewish Prime Minister?

DM: I think that it's very very important that I say to you that I have been treated with respect wherever I've gone as Foreign Secretary because people see me as a Foreign Secretary who is Jewish, not as a Jewish Foreign Secretary and that may seem like a small distinction but actually I think it's part of who we are as a country and it's part of what I said at the beginning about personal identity and national engagement.

I think that the most important thing in diplomacy is to try to say the same things in public as you say in private and if you do that you have a better chance of people treating you with respect and with engagement.  If you combine that consistency with principle then you actually get listened to properly and if you can add to it decisiveness then you can actually make a difference - and good timing – you can make a difference around the world.

You mentioned the Arab world – I think there's a massive debate going on within the Arab world about how it wants to position itself and where it wants to put itself and you see that – it's not just in the Arab world, it's actually in all the Muslim majority countries actually – and it's a debate which we would recognise – it's a debate between people who want to treat people on their merits and people who want to treat people, you know judge a book by its cover and that's the difference.

Question  [Jewish News]:  First of all I was just wondering if you had any plans to visit Israel again in the near future and second of all, have you ever faced anti-semitism yourself either climbing up a political ladder or as a young person?

DM: I will be going to Israel again hopefully before the end of the year.

And I've been pretty lucky really. I've been pretty lucky in the way that / I haven't faced the sort of overt anti-semitism that some people have or that those students in Manchester were facing and that's maybe why I think we've got to be vigilant about it because I know, I don't want to say I feel lucky because that suggests I'm the odd one out, but I think that it's precious to be able to grow up in that sort of way where you're confident about your own views and your own identity; you're also comfortable in the wider society and I think that's what we're all aiming for.

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