Palestine and Israel

Julie Elliott Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

I am very glad that my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris), secured this debate in Backbench Business Committee time, and I rise to speak in support of his motion and the manuscript amendment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw).

This has been one of the most fascinating debates that I have had the privilege to witness in this House since becoming a Member. For me, the motion is very simple. There is no ambiguity: all sides want a two-state solution that works and is sustainable. That can only be reached by negotiation—by people talking to each other. There is no other way to reach it. However, Israel was given statehood in 1950 with no preconditions, and I believe Palestine should be given the same.

For negotiations to work, it is helpful to have as level a playing field as possible and to have as much equality as possible between the sides, but that simply is not the case at present. As has already been said, after the Balfour declaration—which was not carried through entirely—we as a country have a bit of a moral obligation to give our support.

This year’s conflict in Gaza shows how unequal the two sides are. There were some 1,462 civilians killed on the Palestinian side and seven on the Israeli side. All of those are a personal disaster for the victims’ families and are regrettable, but we can see from the numbers the scale of the imbalance in this situation.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Julie Elliott]

No, I am going to carry on.

Given the imbalance, Palestinian statehood would not harm Israel in any way, but it would give some support to the Palestinian people.

For me, the issue is very straightforward and very simple and I am going to keep my comments brief and end on a personal story. I have a friend who came to Sunderland—my city—in the early ’80s to study at what was then the polytechnic and is now the university. He was born in Gaza and on his travel documents his nationality is given as “Palestinian”, but his brother, who was born in precisely the same place seven or eight years later, had “stateless” on his travel documents. No child should have that on their travel documents; it is wrong, it is immoral and it should stop. That is why, on a personal level, I will support the amendment and the motion. It is the right and the moral thing to do.