Debate on Gaza

Speech by Malcolm Bruce MP delivered to House of Commons on Thu 15th Jan 2009

(HANSARD: 15 Jan 2009 : Column 425-427)

"I am pleased to speak after two of my colleagues on the Select Committee on International Development, the hon. Members for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh) and for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden), both of whom made very pertinent contributions in their own way. Importantly, we on the Committee, which has produced two reports on the occupied territories, have been increasingly depressed at the deterioration of the situation over a long period, and we are obviously horrified at the current situation.

The Department for International Development allocated $10 million for emergency relief, mostly through UNRWA, on top of £243 million that has been allocated over three years to support aid and development in the occupied territories of Palestine. However, not a penny of that money would have been needed if there had been peace. That money could have been spent in parts of the world where poor people need it just as much. It is frustrating for us that aid resources are being channelled in that way-not for development, but simply for first aid-and that conflict is costing our taxpayers.

Malcolm particularly made reference to the plight of the civilian population and teh role of the international community in the House of Commons debate on Gaza

I pay tribute to John Ging and the UNRWA team in Gaza, who are not only supporting the Gazan people through this time, but effectively sharing their suffering. UNRWA has given us detailed day-to-day information on just how horrific the situation has been. Bad and intolerable as the situation has been over the past two years, what has happened in the past three weeks has escalated the suffering, stress and humanitarian trauma to the civilian population beyond anything that can be justified by any provocation. Indeed, I am appalled at Members of this House trying to justify that degree of disproportionate action. Those 322 children have absolutely no responsibility for anything that has happened, and they are now dead. The House should acknowledge that we cannot stand by and accept that.

Not only that, but comments have been made about the role of Hamas. Hamas was democratically elected, and however much we might dislike it or condemn some its utterances and many of its actions, the actions of the past few weeks are likely to make Palestinians in Gaza and the west bank more likely not only to support Hamas rather than less, but even to begin to wonder how they will ever live in an independent Palestinian state alongside an Israel that behaves in the way that it has behaved in the past two or three weeks. It is important to recognise that if we do not take firm action and give a lead in delivering a proper peace process, we may well create a united Palestinian unity, albeit one under Hamas. Then the international community will have to determine how to deal with it.

Our Committee did not agree on how we should deal with Hamas, but most of us took the view that we had to engage in some way. The irony is that the United Kingdom has a long history of doing precisely that kind of thing. We had to deal with Mau Mau, with EOKA and with the IRA. No agreement was ever achieved other than by talking to those groups before agreeing the conditions for concluding an agreement. That seems to be a lesson that we can reasonably take from history.

In a very good statement on Monday, the Foreign Secretary said that the United Kingdom

"supported resolution 1860-to uphold the standards on which Israel and the rest of us depend."-[ Official Report, 12 January 2009; Vol. 486, c. 23.]

However, I would suggest that that resolution goes further than that. This is the crucial point that the Foreign Secretary was making. It is not just that Israel must recognise its responsibility as a legitimate state and a member of the United Nations, with all the obligations that that entails. The point is that the international community, particularly the United Kingdom, which played such a crucial role in creating the state of Israel, would be tainted by association with breaches of international law, flagrant disregard for UN resolutions and the possible perpetration of war crimes if we failed to ensure that a member state with which we are closely associated complied with international law on terms that we subscribe to. If we fail to act, we will be tarnished with collective guilt by association.

That is what our citizens are saying so strongly to the Government. They feel that they share responsibility for the conflict, and they want the Government to accept their responsibility to use their initiative, in concert with others, to try to ensure a resolution. Surely we have to seize an opportunity from the worst and darkest hour. All this death and conflict-and the possibility, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) said, that Israel has made a tactical error-can be turned around if the new Administration in the United States, with a lead from the United Kingdom and Europe, say that Hamas has to recognise the mistakes it has made, that Israel has to recognise its responsibility and, above all, that we all have to recognise that the Palestinian people should not be exposed to this degree of suffering in future. We have to ensure that the regime that operates in Israel and the Palestinian states is designed to give prosperity, peace and a functioning state to Israel and Palestine, because the alternative is the disintegration of the entire region."

ENDS