ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now tensions in the Middle East are increasing again this morning as Israel steps up its ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza. At least forty Palestinians including many women and children, have been killed during Israeli shelling of a single neighbourhood in Gaza.  Israel says Hamas was using the civilians as human shields, the Palestinian leadership described it as a massacre.  I am joined now by the former Foreign Office Minister for the Middle East, Alistair Burt and from Edinburgh by the former Lib Dem leader, Ming Campbell.  A very good morning to you gentlemen and staying with you, Sir Ming, as long as you’ve been in politics and indeed even before that, we’ve been discussing this crisis.  What is to be done?

SIR MING CAMPBELL: You are quite right, I mean the two state solution has been on the table for as long as I’ve been in the House of Commons but it doesn’t seem to get any closer.  Let’s be clear, Hamas has no right to launch rockets indiscriminately and at random against the population of Israel and Israel is perfectly entitled to defend itself, of that there is no doubt but in international law any such defence has got to be proportionate and we have all been horrified by the Malaysian Airline incident and justifiably so.  With those additional numbers you just referred to a moment or two ago, there are now more Palestinians have perished since this particular operation by Israel began than died in that terrible accident.  When you look at that and see it is women and children that have taken the brunt, families are taking the brunt, then I think it is very difficult to argue that what is being done is proportionate.

DM: Alistair Burt, coming in on this, we’ve just reported about an hour earlier that Hamas has offered a three hour ceasefire for humanitarian reasons, we’ve hearing that Israeli defence forces are accepting a two hour ceasefire.  That’s all well and good but immediately we need a permanent ceasefire and then something has to change.

ALISTAIR BURT: Yes, we do.  Hamas has got to do better than this, they have got to accept the terms of the ceasefire that was set out by the Egyptians, there is no reason why they should not.  That’s got to happen and then we have got to get behind the Ban Ki Moon effort and the UN effort to build on Resolution 1860 which provided for some measure of support for Gaza after the 2009 incident and that involved stopping Hamas getting rockets, getting weaponry and rebuilding and that’s a matter for the international community to stop them but it also required Gaza to be opened up because this is a complex issue, it takes both sides.  Then I think very strongly it has got to be linked to making further progress on the Middle East peace process so the efforts of the Palestinian authority and those elements of Hamas that must accept that the conflict is over, they can be joined by the Israelis and we can get a final answer.

DM: This is the point for both of you, Sir Ming the international community needs to keep the pressure up on Israel doesn’t it?  The ceasefires have to happen, that’s pressure on both sides but beyond that, the Hamas leadership and others amongst the Palestinians say okay, we’ve got a ceasefire, it happened last time and the time before that, then the international community forgets us, we’re back in our box contained by the Israelis.

SIR MING CAMPBELL: Well the problem is, rightly at the very heart of this lies the whole question of illegal settlements on the West Bank and the problem for any Palestinian leader, whether it be a leader of Hamas or Abu Mazen Mahmoud Abbas who leads Fata, the problem is that to enter into a long term settlement which doesn’t restore some or indeed all of the land  which has been illegally occupied is very, very difficult.  Not least of course because some of the proposed building would make it impossible for East Jerusalem to become the capital of an independent Palestine and so right at the very heart of this lies this whole question of settlements and until there is some movement on that, it is impossible for Abu Mazen to accept something of that kind.  Who has got leverage?  Well we used to believe the United States has got leverage but it does seem recently, no doubt because President Obama and Mr Netanyahu have had a famously bad personal relationship, that even the United States doesn’t have any leverage now.

DM: Okay, let’s agree, Alistair Burt, that leverage has to come, it’s back to my point about the international community.  The Palestinians can’t do it, they can’t stop the settlements.

ALISTAIR BURT: It is a combination of both settlements and security which is absolutely vital for Israel and if the international community wants to see a secure Israel then they have got to have security down the Jordan valley.  Security is not just built up on force of arms, that’s the tragedy of what is happening today.  We are seeing no resolution of a problem where there is attack, reprisal and an endless cycle and the deaths of children and civilians wounds everybody, it questions the methods by which Israel is trying to make itself more secure and questions the logic of Hamas simply not accepting that the conflict is over, like Abu Mazen has and like the Palestinian authority has and finding a way through to peace.  The point that you made about it being forgotten after there is an incident is absolutely right, I always maintained while I was in my post as Minister that whatever else was going on in the region, settling through the Middle East peace process was absolutely vital.  It’s not the only thing that will end conflict in the region but it’s very important and it sours the relationship between the United States, the United Kingdom, Arab states that want to see a solution, even though there are complexities in the Arab states because those that are supporting Hamas have got to stop and then get behind the Arab peace initiative.

DM: Something longer term, Sir Christopher Meyer our former Ambassador to Washington amongst other jobs was on this programme a little while earlier and he said longer term, and this applies to all conflicts, it is very difficult for terrorism to thrive in nations that are waxing fat and prosperous.  There has to be an economic plan as well. 

SIR MING CAMPBELL: Absolutely right, absolutely right. I certainly agree with that, there has got to be some sense of ambition, some sense of achievement and if life is the way life is for people in Gaza, there is no incentive towards the kind of resolution that Alistair Burt has just so eloquently described.   It is also worth remembering of course there has been a peace in the Middle East because King Hussein of Jordan, Mr Begin of Israel and Sadat of Egypt entered into peace agreements with each other which have stuck, so it can be done if you have the right level of political commitment amongst the participants and the right level of encouragement for example from the United States which could make a condition of any settlement the fact that there would massive financial investment in Gaza because it is a place you know where hundreds of thousands of people live in circumstances and conditions which quite frankly are intolerable.

ALISTAIR BURT: There’s a further point on the economics that is very important.  If you club the Israeli economy into the rest of the Arab economy people reckon there is about 40 million new jobs needed across the Arab world to cope with increase in population, young people looking for jobs.  If you plug that economy into the Arab world after a peace settlement, not only have you got the opportunity of development in Gaza and Palestine itself but you have got the opportunities to spread that economic activity throughout the region as a whole. That’s why, despite all the difficulties, I remain an optimist.  This opportunity has got to be seen.

DM: And here we are having another very civilised conversation about all this but of course what’s going on at the moment is brutal beyond belief.  Just give me your take both you gentleman, Alistair Burt is the Israeli response disproportionate, the number of civilians, the women, the children that are being killed here?

ALISTAIR BURT: What I have said is the Israeli response is proportionate to the extraordinary threat that Hamas poses.  You see people emerging ….

DM: Civilians in vast numbers are being killed in Gaza.  

ALISTAIR BURT: If I can complete my comment.  If you see people emerging from the tunnels in order to attack Kibbutz’s in order to kidnap, you can see the complex web that has been left there, Israelis can’t leave that alone but there is an imbalance in suffering, of course there is, with the numbers of children and civilians who have been killed and as I said earlier, I think that questions the methods by which Israel is trying to deal with it and it questions the Hamas logic in keeping it going and placing their own people at risk because they know they are doing that.  Any death of a civilian, particularly a child, is horrendous, that’s why it needs a ceasefire now, humanitarian access and then work on that 1860 Resolution and support Ban Ki Moon because I think now he is the only mediator possible.

DM: And Sir Ming, would you condemn the Israeli response?  Hamas or whoever, the Palestinians, don’t have tanks and military aircraft.  

SIR MING CAMPBELL: Exactly, the biggest imbalance is the military one.  I do not for a moment justify, nor could anyone, justify the indiscriminate firing at random of rockets into the Israeli population but is it seriously being suggested that the only way that can be dealt with is by the use of air strikes, by the use of heavy artillery and by the movement of tanks?  Let me put it this way, supposing, just supposing the boot was on the other foot and it was the Palestinians who were using tactics of that kind towards the Israelis, don’t you think the people’s response would be rather more aggressively in favour of the view that this has got to stop and that what is happening is disproportionate.  

DM: But there is an analysis, isn’t there Alistair Burt, that says some of these people are being used as human shields and indeed Hamas don’t particularly care because it drives more recruits their way?

ALISTAIR BURT: Which is why the whole thing is pointless because attempts therefore made by Israel to secure their peace by dealing with Hamas always fail if Hamas is allowed after a ceasefire or after a settlement to reequip, rearm.  Maybe that will stop because the Egyptians are now taking a different attitude towards the tunnels but that attitude has then got to be bolstered by other Arab states who don’t support Hamas, have got to close this down.  We can’t have another cycle like this, Ming is absolutely right, the more killings of civilians that go on, the more children that are injured, the more horrendous it is and the more difficult it gets for Israel to explain its position, whatever the justification they’ve been giving against the extraordinary terrorism waged against it, this cannot be the only way and the death of a child cannot ever be right in any circumstances.

DM: Gentlemen, I must end it there, thank you both very much indeed, Alistair Burt here with me in the studio and Sir Ming Campbell in Edinburgh.