Meeting of the Parliament 17 June 2025
I thank Bill Kidd for securing this debate.
Collective punishment is a war crime under international humanitarian law, and it is specifically prohibited by the Geneva conventions. Yet, collective punishment is exactly what the blockade of Gaza, imposed by the apartheid, genocidal Israeli state, is inflicting on Palestinians. Using the starvation of civilians as a weapon of war goes against international law and the customs of war. The humanitarian crisis that we see in Gaza is a direct consequence of that collective punishment.
Alongside that are Israel’s actions to destroy all the infrastructure of society and culture, flattening schools, homes, hospitals and universities. Those acts of aggression are clearly designed to cause as much human suffering as possible and to make it is as difficult as possible to resist the blockade and to rebuild, restore and live.
If we, in this Parliament, find the actions of Putin in Ukraine to be so unpalatable—and we rightly,do—then we should find the actions of Netanyahu and his regime to be just as abhorrent. The International Criminal Court has had an arrest warrant out for Netanyahu since November 2024. We should take a similarly robust stance as we do with Putin. We should also be doing whatever we can to ensure that Netanyahu and the others who are responsible for these atrocities are held to account, that the blockade is lifted and that unhindered humanitarian access across Gaza is supported and encouraged.
However, this is not just about the ICC and legal routes to justice, or getting into Gaza the food, water, medical supplies, fuel, clothes and so much more that we all take for granted every day. We must also consider the role that we, in Scotland and the UK, are and could be playing in this on-going genocide.
We hear of the heroic attempts to get aid into or people out of Gaza and the West Bank, and we commend those who are committed to humanitarian and peace work. What we do not hear much about or see any accountability for are the actions of our state institutions that serve to pour fuel on the fire of this war. The UK’s military forces are currently training Israeli Defence Force personnel. More than 55,000 Palestinians have already been murdered, the majority of whom were women, children and the elderly, and yet we are training the very army that is carrying out such atrocities.
As if that was not bad enough, UK taxpayers’ money—our money—is being used to subsidise weapons companies that manufacture arms and components that are being used to destroy infrastructure and life in Gaza and, it seems, also in Iran, with Israel escalating instability across the region at the weekend.
We can no longer say that our Governments are not complicit in a situation that is
“worse than hell on earth”
according to the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross. We have to call it what it is—genocide and ethnic cleansing—and act accordingly. We should be doing everything that we can to stop the UK’s complicity.
We want to see recognition of the state of Palestine, as is seen in a growing number of countries around the world. The Greens also believe that we must see support for and action towards boycott, divestment and sanctions. We should not be normalising genocidal states. We should not be celebrating their inclusion in sporting or cultural activities. We should instead be using every ounce of our economic, social and political power to isolate the genocidal Israeli state and secure a very different future for Palestine and the wider middle east.
The crisis in Gaza is not inevitable. War is not inevitable. Both are a consequence of political failure, and our Governments are complicit in that failure. The Palestinian people deserve better.
18:51