Syria

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

The £11 million that I announced earlier does, of course, include further support for civil society, which is vital at this time.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)]

Today my thoughts are with Bashar Helmi and Mounzer Darsani and their families, and with all the other Syrian refugees who escaped Assad’s brutality and resettled on the Isle of Bute. Their hope, and the hope of all the people of Syria, will be that Syrians are now able to secure the peaceful future that they want, rather than Syria becoming a battlefield in another’s proxy war. How would the Foreign Secretary explain and legally justify the fact that the Syrians whom he mentioned, who were on the street cheering the demise of Assad, having waited five decades to be free of him, were, on day one, on the receiving end of a massive Israeli airstrike?

[Mr Lammy]

I spoke to my Israeli counterpart yesterday, and it is right to understand that there are legitimate security concerns for Israel, particularly in the context of a country that has housed ISIS, Daesh, and al-Qaeda. I wish it were as simple as the hon. Gentleman seems to think it is. For all the reasons that I have given, we want an exclusive society that supports everyone, but none of us can have any truck with terrorist groups.