Baroness Deech
Main Page: Baroness Deech (Crossbench - Life peer)
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, a debate on this topic was held in the other place on 6 January and the issues, particularly of arrest, were extensively covered. What is there to add? One of the underlying themes of the Middle East for decades, if not centuries, espoused not only by Palestinians but by the majority of states in the region, is the eradication of any non-Muslim presence in the Middle East—in this case, the obliteration of Israel and its replacement by an exclusively Muslim state. This House and the other place have all too often been recruited to the cause, as the dozens of debates such as this exemplify. But 6 million Jews living there lawfully under international law will not again be led to the slaughter and deprivation of all that they have built up, while the world stands by. Hence the measures that Israel has to take, but they are all against a background of careful attention to legal and humanitarian requirements.
Palestinian children are used as pawns in this struggle. They suffer from indoctrination with hate; they are used as human shields and suicide bombers; funds destined for them are diverted to the building of tunnels, where they are killed in the course of construction; and they are discriminated against in the countries where they are born, such as Lebanon. Palestinian children are found not only in the territories adjacent to Israel but elsewhere in the Middle East because of the expansive and unique definition of “refugees”. Thousands of Palestinian children have fled Syria to Lebanon and Jordan and are living in camps, in desperate need. Some are joining ISIS. Hundreds have been killed in Syria. The death, starvation and torture of Palestinian children in Syria or on the border with Egypt, which blockades Gaza, do not make headlines.
Lebanon treats Palestinian children particularly badly. They are barred from public schools, social security and public health provision, even though they have been born and raised there. They are restricted from 30 professions and can seek only menial jobs. Half the teens do not finish school. The illiteracy rate is 25%, whereas in Gaza literacy is near-universal. The Security Council reports that 15 to 17 year-old Palestinian children have been recruited by Palestinian armed factions in Lebanon and sent to Syria. Jordan is sending Palestinians back to Syria and restricting their access to facilities. In 2006 the UNHCR estimated that there were 34,000 Palestinians living in Iraq; now only 11,000 remain. They have been stripped of residency permits, are discriminated against and are subject to sectarian violence and arbitrary arrest.
Most Arab countries have not ratified the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and do not have domestic law to govern the situation. Article 34 of that convention says that,
“States shall as far as possible facilitate the assimilation and naturalization of refugees”.
Today there is an outcry about the insecurity of European nationals in our country, not to mention the refugees reaching Europe. The church has called for us to extend hospitality, housing, health and education. Why do we not expect those same standards of the Arab nations in which millions of Palestinian children have been born and raised? No wonder Syrian refugees do not go to other Arab nations, when they see how the Palestinians have been treated. In order not to be unfairly selective given the child abuse across the region, will our Government call for Palestinian children to be given full rights in all the countries in which they reside?
If you condemn the slaughter in Nice, you should also condemn the ideology that is fostered to that end in Palestine. This is where we come to the nub of the matter. Why are Palestinian children being robbed of their childhood and arrested? It is because they are being educated and incited to hate by TV, radio, the internet, school books, sermons and summer camps glorifying martyrdom and death. Children act out shooting, stabbing and kidnapping. The educational system in Gaza teaches hatred and violence from a young age; you can see it in videos on the internet. Twenty-five thousand Palestinian children go to summer camps to learn to be suicide bombers and terrorists, and to be taught that making peace with so-called infidels is forbidden. Kindergarten children are told that killing is noble and that they are heroes if they die in the act.
The result is that 30% of the attackers in the current wave of terrorism on the streets of Israel are Palestinian minors. The technique of driving a vehicle into crowds of civilians or taking an axe to them is practised by Palestinians. There is no education for peace, or for a two-state solution, but only that Israel is to be removed and history distorted. Israel and Palestine are legally bound to abstain from incitement under the Oslo agreement and the 2003 road map, but the Palestinian Authority has failed to deliver on its commitment. Will Her Majesty’s Government use their leverage and the millions of dollars that they send in aid to Palestine to insist that this child abuse stops? The children suffer at the hands of their own people. They are killed while building tunnels for attack. They are used and abused, while Palestinian human rights organisations turn a blind eye to cruelty unless they can blame it on Israel.
The right reverend Prelate will know that to some extent the situation in Israel and Palestine is affected by two millennia of the persecution of Jews. It is not for the victims of persecution to learn the lessons, as is often said; it is for their perpetrators. There is only one country in the Middle East where Christian holy places are safeguarded and the Christian population is growing: that is Israel. The Church’s conscience and care for its co-religionists should lead it to call for the safety and survival of the nation of Israel. The Church should ask the Palestinians: where is their peacemaker? Where is their moral leader? A relentless onslaught on Israel, with boycotts and the obsession displayed by some with condemning it, rather than righting the underlying causes of the Palestinian condition, will only exacerbate the situation. It is time to be constructive and the Church should be giving a lead.