Hansard

We could spend our allotted time listing the countless cases of the deliberate slaughter of men, women and children during and since the events of 7 October and could easily pretend that all the acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing that have occurred since then are a result of that day.

However, to do that would be to live in a world that denies facts and denies the history of both that region and of the United Kingdom. Without the betrayal of the indigenous population of Palestine, primarily by the British, we would not be here, so recognising the state of Palestine is the very least that the UK owes its people.

I well remember hearing about the horrors of 7 October last year and imagining the fear that those poor young people who were out enjoying themselves at a music festival must have felt when terror arrived. I suspect that I am not alone in having seen my sympathies lie with the people of Israel on that and the following days.

However, I would also bet that I was not alone in fearing what would happen next. We are told that Mossad is the greatest intelligence agency in the world and that the Israel Defense Forces is the most moral army yet, strangely, those two organisations were completely unable to find the culprits who carried out the 7 October terrorist acts. Instead, Netanyahu, a man who hangs on to power solely to stay out of prison, decided that it was time to clear out the people of Gaza once and for all. He set the dogs on the innocents in a pretendy attempt to root out the guilty, and he okayed the slaughter of children, women and the elderly because he saw them as being less important than his own future. Do you know what is worse than that? He got international backing to do so. While he was bombing safe havens, hospitals and refugee camps, the UK and the USA happily continued supporting him, including by selling him weapons, all for domestic political purposes.

It is fitting that today’s debate has been brought to the chamber by my friend and colleague Humza Yousaf. When the events of 7 October happened, he was the first to show support to the Jewish community of Scotland and was joined in that by all the other political leaders. When the genocide began, Humza stood up for the people of Gaza but, that time, he was alone. While other leaders awaited instructions from elsewhere, Humza stood up and stood strong. We should never forget the humanity that he showed and the courage that it took to make himself visible like that. Of course, he did all that while he had family under the threat of the ethnic cleansing that was taking place. That is the mark of a good man.

The conflict in Palestine has been a long one, although last year’s events saw it escalate to new levels of violence. I am sure that those whose memories go back that bit further than the latest news cycle will know that Palestine has been slowly and methodically annexed by illegal settlers, backed by the Israeli army, for decades. According to the UN, between 2008 and 2021, 23 Palestinians were killed for every Israeli, of which 22 per cent were children and 10 per cent were women.

No killing is a good thing, but those figures are a sharp reminder of the military imbalance in the area. The Palestinians now face the might of a US and UK backed Israeli army that seems to be intent on committing war crime after war crime, and ultimately genocide, in an attempt to ethnically cleanse the region. It is to the eternal shame of the UK Government that it continues backing the Netanyahu regime that has carried out such atrocities in Palestine and is still doing so daily. Given Keir Starmer’s comments, I do not hold out much hope of an incoming Labour Government being any different.

The SNP has a long and honourable tradition of believing in the right of all nations to self-determination and the right to govern themselves in their own interests. We believe that Palestine is a nation and that the United Kingdom should immediately recognise it as a state. That is undoubtedly what we would do if Scotland were independent and it is what our neighbours in Ireland, Spain and Norway have done.

The situation in Gaza has been a humanitarian disaster, with food convoys being shot at and aid workers murdered by Israeli forces. The first step on the way out of that barbarity is to recognise Palestine as a sovereign state in its own right. A two-state solution must be brokered and either the UK is part of the solution, along with our friends and neighbours in Europe and beyond, or it will once again, as we have seen so often in its dark imperial history, be a large part of the problem. We know that 146 UN countries recognise Palestine. Will the UK make it 147?