Meeting of the Parliament 03 September 2025
I have said in this chamber before that, when we take away the issues that we create to divide us, such as colour, creed, religion and sexual orientation, people the world over are the same. We want the same basic things—to have a happy childhood, to spend time with friends, to get a good education, to be immersed in our community, to make a decent living, to meet somebody, to have a family and to live in peace without fear—and we all grieve loss.
However, it is those proposing to exert power, ideology and control who create division, hatred and violence. Today we are debating the humanitarian crisis in Gaza—and it is a humanitarian crisis—but in recent times, we could have been talking about atrocities in Rwanda, Mariupol, Srebrenica, Aleppo, Bosnia, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Afghanistan. In such conflicts, it is always the civilians who bear the brunt of politicians and religious leaders’ misplaced ideology.
On 7 October 2023, Hamas fighters launched their assault on Israel, indiscriminately killing 1,200 Israelis in the most brutal and sickening ways. I was on a call with other MSPs, some of whom are in the chamber today, when we were unexpectedly shown footage from the body cams taken from the terrorists. I know that I was not the only one who was unprepared for the level of brutality that had been heaped upon the most innocent of people, and I cannot ever unsee it. What about the footage of those terrorists beating and abusing that young German woman—the only woman, incidentally, seen in all that coverage? She died the most horrendous death. The 251 hostages were taken by Hamas as bargaining chips and human shields against every humanitarian law we might wish to mention.
We must never lose sight of that, and under no circumstances can Hamas in any way profit from their actions or fail to be held to account—nor can the Houthis, Hezbollah or the Iranian Government, for that matter. They have all stated categorically that they wish the purging of all Israelis—the very definition of genocide.