Ceasefire in Gaza

Kenny MacAskill Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)]

Obviously, Israel is entitled to defend itself. It is unquestionable that Hamas’s actions were totally reprehensible, but we are long past the point at which Israeli action was legitimate. It has not been a matter of days or weeks; it is now months. Israel has gone beyond what international law views as acceptable.

What Israel is now doing is not a natural consequence of what Hamas did, which was evil and wicked—the retention of prisoners and the holding of hostages remain so. What is now happening is not a consequence; it is deliberate. Israel is acting to the plan of Netanyahu and others to make Gaza unliveable, which is why we have to support a ceasefire and call out Israel’s actions. Israel is not simply defending its own. It is not simply looking for hostages in tunnels; it is crushing the life out of Gaza so that it will be unliveable, not for weeks or months but for years, if not forever. It is Israel’s intention to flatten Gaza, which is why we have to require not just an immediate ceasefire but, ultimately, genuine peace.

That comes back to the role of Britain, which has been supine towards Israel and towards the US. The tragedy now is that it is moving from being supine, in failing to vote at the UN, to being complicit. We know that RAF Akrotiri is not simply being used by the RAF to fly into Israel; we have handed it over to the US so that it can move things into Israel. Of course, when we ask the UK Government what America is moving from Cyprus into Israel, they cannot answer. When we ask the Americans, they say, “We can’t tell you, because it is a British base.” This is a deliberate distortion, in order to allow Israel to be supplied through the UK, acting in complicity with the USA. We also know that intelligence is being used and carried out by Britain, and that it is being shared with others. We are told it relates to the hostages, but what else do we know? We are simply not told. We know that the British Army is training the IDF and that the British military machine is seeing companies making huge profits.

The time has come for an immediate ceasefire, but the time has also come for the UK to stop being complicit with the United States, to stop being supine to Israel and to stand up for humanity. The developing world is speaking out and it is about time the UK stood with it.