Meeting of the Parliament 21 November 2023
I dearly hope that there can be agreement among political parties today to unite behind an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. It is that action that will show the Palestinians that we are watching, that they are not alone and that Scotland will be part of a wider international call. It is a call that recognises the best chance for the release of the Israeli hostages; it recognises, equally, that the world should not forget or forgive the terror attacks on Israelis on 7 October.
I agree with Donald Cameron on one thing—on a few things, actually: that only dialogue will lead to long-term peace, because violence can only breed violence. Today we have heard reports that there may well be a five-day ceasefire—still to be confirmed. I hope that that opportunity, if it arises, will be grasped, because we have witnessed nothing like this human catastrophe in our lives. I certainly have not. The daily unrelenting, indiscriminate enormous firepower, the carpet bombing of hospitals, schools and people’s homes, and not least the loss of life, including that of 5,000 children, the inhumane withdrawal of food and water and internet and the deliberate dismantling of the Gaza healthcare system constitute completely disproportionate action. It is a slaughter—a massacre of an entire people who were already under siege. It is a clear breach of international law.
The events of 7 October in Israel are also events that I wholly condemn without reservation, and for which there should be full accountability in the International Criminal Court, but absolutely nothing can justify the response by Israel: the deliberate targeting of civilians, aid workers, journalists, children still trapped and hurt under the rubble, and babies needlessly denied the care that they need in hospitals.
What if it was your child and you cannot get an ambulance or treatment for your child, so you have to watch them die? You cannot even flee from that violence, because you are trapped in the biggest prison in the world, along with 2.3 million other people, who are going through exactly the same as you. Meanwhile, world leaders and the EU procrastinate about whether they are going to call for a ceasefire.
Today, in one of the many stories that I have read, a surgeon reported that he was left with no choice but to perform an amputation on his own child, and the child died. Children with no surviving parents are one of the biggest phenomena that we are seeing right now. I am clear in my own mind that we are witnessing an attempt to wipe out an entire population.
Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister of Israel, said that it is an “entire nation” that is responsible for the Hamas attacks. The Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said:
“We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.”
Heritage minister Amichai Eliyahu said that one of the possibilities was to drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza, and that anyone waving a Palestinian or Hamas flag
“shouldn’t continue to live on the face of the earth.”
However, a United Nations special reporter has warned that the Palestinians are in grave danger of mass ethnic cleansing and that what we are witnessing might well be a repeat of the 1948 Nakba. The powerful speech by Nada Tarbush, the Palestinian observer to the UN for the state of Palestine, quoted Israel’s finance minister, who said:
“there’s no such thing as the Palestinian people”.
In fact, at the same meeting of the UN, the current Prime Minister, Netanyahu, held up a map of the middle east that showed Palestine deleted from the map. The UN reporter also summarised Israel’s position as being that all Palestinians in Gaza are
“either terrorists or terrorist sympathizers or human shields”.
With some notable exceptions, Israel’s current and past leaders have singularly failed to establish a path to peace for the Palestinians in 75 years. As we speak during this period, more than 200 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied west bank, and settlers, who are illegal in the west bank, are being armed with rifles and left free to kill. I am sure that everyone has noticed that that has been happening in the past four weeks.
I have worked with brave former Israel Defense Forces soldiers through Breaking the Silence, an organisation that speaks out. Ariel Bernstein and Benzion Sanders served in the ground incursion into Gaza in 2014. After they fought in that war, they reflected on what they learned. They said that their leaders had lied to them that the conflict could be managed and that there was no need to strive for dialogue with any part of Palestinian society, not even the moderates. I know that to be true because I was an observer in 2006 and I met Isaac Herzog in the Knesset. Eventually, he said that it is true to say that Mahmoud Abbas and the Fatah moderates were humiliated by the Israeli Government and that the PLO was dismissed over that period. For 30 years, they have been trying to reach peace through a two-state solution.
I have had the privilege of discussing Palestine with world leaders in Qatar, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Tunisia, and I have to say that there has been too much rhetoric and not enough action. I believe with all my heart that the only way for Israel to live within its secure borders and for ordinary Israelis to live in peace, which I want, is for the international community to press Israel to withdraw from the occupation and for there to be a dialogue about an end game that means that there are two sovereign states. That is the only way forward and the only way for peace. I hope that the Scottish Parliament can start on that some time soon. I support the First Minister and the statement that he made earlier, which is to recognise the state of Palestine right now.
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