West Bank (Area C)
Debate between Annette Brooke and Bob Stewart(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Annette Brooke (in the Chair)
Order. I remind Members that a number of people still wish to speak, and the number who are able to do so is in your hands. The winding-up speeches will start promptly at 3.40 pm.
Bob Stewart
Thank you, Mrs Brooke. I will speed up and allow fewer interventions. I am going to speed up and cut down, because I think that is fair.
My experience as a United Nations commander informs me of one essential truth, which everyone in this room will fully understand without having been in my circumstances. Injustice will in the end cause such resentment that it will erupt. That happened in Ireland and it has happened in other places where I have been—it will eventually burst.
I know that Israel has often been provoked mightily, but what is happening in Area C worries me. There is continued expansion of settler communities in the west bank. That in a way signals to the Palestinians that there is very little intention to stop it or to come to some sort of solution. Unless the settlements stop, there can be no chance whatever of a two-state solution, and the only alternative to a two-state solution is a one-state solution—one state where Jews and Palestinians recognise one another as equals. Surely that is not totally utopian. Acceptance of human beings’ human rights is what the United Nations is all about and what everyone in this room feels strongly about, too. For its part, Hamas, in Gaza, must somehow recognise the right of the state of Israel to exist. After all, Israel did withdraw from Gaza in 2005.