CMEC at Conservative Party Conference

On October 6th CMEC held its annual fringe meeting at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester. The event held in conjunction with the Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU) was titled “Engagement or Isolation: How should a Conservative government approach the Middle East?”

Hugo Swire MP, Hon Chairman of CMEC, Chaired the discussion and the panellists were David Lidington MP, Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, former British Ambassador to the United Nations and HM Special Representative to Iraq, and Henry Siegman, President and Director of the New York-based US Middle East Project. The discussion was followed by a drinks reception with Arabic canapés. In total over 300 guests attended the event.

Opening proceedings, Sir Jeremy Greenstock simply stated that any future Conservative government must engage fully with the Middle East and laid out what he believed would be the challenges in the future. Talking specifically about Iraq, he said that there is still a “huge way to go before it becomes a stable and more prosperous country.” With regards to the Middle East Peace Process he criticised the current ‘West Bank first’ policy and stressed the importance of Palestinian unity and the need for a coherent strategy from the Quartet. The potential for talking to Hamas should be properly explored. He called upon a Conservative government to engage with Arab civil society across the region as well as with the individual governments, as we do in Israel. He finished by highlighting the importance of testing the diplomatic options on Iran to the limit and mentioned the American failure to pick up the Iranian offer to talk in 2002. 

The second speaker, Henry Siegman, outlined the five policy recommendations a group of senior US Government officials, described by the New York Times as “the mandarins of American foreign policy,” proposed to the then President-elect, Barack Obama, last December with regards to the Middle East Peace Process. These proposals included the notion that a resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict is profoundly in US national interests and that the US Government must directly intervene in the peace process as no agreement will be possible without a third party. In addition to this he stressed that “the only way to build confidence is to offer Palestinians a clear picture of a state that is sovereign, viable and territorially contiguous, and that offers the Israeli people reasonable guarantees for their security.”

Previous peace initiatives have failed, not because we have not been clever enough to come up with the right formula but because we have lacked the political will and the moral courage to use the leverage that we have to get the parties to accept them.

Henry Siegman, Director of the US/Middle East Peace Project

The third and final speaker, David Lidington MP, emphasized that a Conservative government would be even-handed in its approach to Middle East and spoke of the major shift in the politics of the region due to the change in the US administration. He stated that the Conservatives would be robust in declaring their continuing support for a two state solution and a freeze on all settlement construction. He highlighted the importance of Palestinian reconciliation and Egypt’s involvement in this process but ruled out direct engagement with Hamas. He reminded us of how the Gaza conflict has greatly polarised opinions in the region which would make bridging the gap between Israel and its Arab neighbours hugely difficult. He also praised the efforts of Arab leaders for repeating the message of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative that offers peace to Israel with all of its Arab neighbours. On Iran Dr Lidington said that whilst Iran’s nuclear programme is a genuine threat Obama was right to engage with Iran and that a diplomatic solution, with if necessary, a tougher sanctions regime was the right way forward. To read David Lidington’s full speech, please click here.

The political stability or otherwise of the Middle East is going to have a direct impact on the security of the United Kingdom, upon our energy supplies and upon our trade, and therefore on the prosperity as well as the safety of the British people.

David Lidington MP, Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister

The session finished with a question and answer session which covered a wide range of topics including whether the US Congress would support an attack on Iran, to the recently published Goldstone Report as well as the UK Government’s decision to begin talking to the political wing of Hezbollah.