UK-Israel Trade

Debate between Louise Ellman and Richard Burden

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dame Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) on securing this important debate and providing an opportunity to show the strength of the trading ties between Israel and the United Kingdom, and the benefits that those trading links bring.

Israel is a vibrant start-up country with a strong business sector, a strong trade union sector, through the Histadrut, and a strong co-operative sector. It also has a strong welfare state and excellent universal healthcare. The value of bilateral trade between the UK and Israel soared to £6.9 billion in 2017—up 25% on the previous year and still rising. Trading links bring mutual benefit. Thousands of people in this country manufacture products and goods that are sold in Israel, and more than 300 Israeli companies employ thousands of people in the UK, in areas such as high tech, finance and pharmaceuticals. There are very strong educational links between our two countries.

I will focus on one area that benefits people in this country: Israeli medical technology. PillCam is the first pill that can be swallowed to record images of the digestive tract. It was invented and developed in Israel. Babysense is a system that protects babies from sudden infant death syndrome. It was invented in Israel. I could also mention cancer probes, heart catheters, the bedside blood count device developed by PixCell Medical Technologies and the artificial cornea developed by CorNeat Vision. All are positive developments that help people to lead a better life. Reference has already been made to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign, which advocates boycotts between the UK and Israel—it is against UK-Israel trade. I wonder whether it has dared to campaign against the use of those lifesaving products. I suspect not.

[Richard Burden]

I will not ask my hon. Friend about the BDS campaign, but could I ask her at least to endorse the statement in the Foreign Office’s own advice to UK businesses? It states:

“Settlements are illegal under international law, constitute an obstacle to peace and threaten to make a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict impossible. We will not recognise any changes to the pre-1967 borders, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties.

There are therefore clear risks related to economic and financial activities in the settlements, and we do not encourage or offer support to such activity.”

Will my hon. Friend endorse that statement from the Foreign Office advice?

[Dame Louise Ellman]

Settlements are one barrier to peace, but they are not insuperable and not the only barrier to peace. The most fundamental barrier to a peaceful solution of this tragic conflict, and the key factor that prevents the setting up of two states, Israel and Palestine, is the Palestinians’ refusal explicitly to recognise the legitimacy of Israel as a national Jewish home.

Occupied Palestinian Territories: Israeli Settlements

Debate between Louise Ellman and Richard Burden

Thursday 9th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Ellman]

I agree that the settlement policy is certainly not helpful, but it has developed because of the intransigence of the Palestinians and a failure to reach agreement.

I accept that settlements are a problem, but they are not an unsolvable one and they are certainly not the only one. One critical problem and barrier to resolving the situation is the deliberate incitement by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Hamas is explicitly anti-Semitic—it has talked about Jews ruling the world and made a statement about killing every Jew behind a rock—but the Palestinian Authority is not totally innocent either.

I draw hon. Members’ attention to the Palestinian campaign of incitement to violence and individual terrorism. In the 12 months after October 2015—it is not finished yet—there were 169 stabbings, 128 shootings and 54 car rammings. Forty-six Israeli civilians were killed and more than 650 were injured on the streets of Israel. Individual terrorists—they are sometimes as young as 12 and 13—are fired up with hatred to go out on those streets and kill Israelis. That includes a teenage boy pulling a 13-year-old boy off his bike and stabbing him. That is because of incitement and the creation of hatred.

[Richard Burden]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mrs Ellman]

Not just now.

The Palestinian Authority has taken actions such as naming schools after terrorists. One is named after Dalal Mughrabi, who organised the 1978 coastal road massacre, when a school bus was attacked and 37 people were killed, including 12 children. That is just one example of the Palestinian Authority—not Hamas, but the Palestinian Authority—honouring terrorists, calling them martyrs and encouraging others to do the same.

I could mention the case of Dafna Meir, a nurse and mother to six children who was murdered in her home. Thirteen-year-old Noah was stabbed and critically injured while he rode his bike on the streets of Pisgat Ze’ev in northern Jerusalem. Alon Govberg, Chaim Haviv and Richard Laken were killed as they rode on a bus in Armon Hanatziv in southern Jerusalem. They were victims of what President Abbas himself called a “peaceful uprising”.

If that does not make the point enough, I remind hon. Members that, just last month, President Abbas’s party honoured the martyrdom of Wafa Idris, the first Palestinian female suicide bomber, who in 2002 used her cover as a volunteer for the Palestinian Red Crescent to enter Jerusalem in an ambulance. There, in the words of Fatah’s official Facebook page, she used

“an explosive belt…so that her pure body would explode into pieces in the Zionists’ faces”.

She did indeed kill an Israeli and injured more than 100 other people.

[Richard Burden]

rose—

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

rose—

Gaza

Debate between Louise Ellman and Richard Burden

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend who secured the debate. I spent four years with him on the Select Committee on International Development trying to avoid having to pronounce the name of his constituency. I will not mess that up by making another attempt now.

I have to say that I was a little confused by my hon. Friend’s contribution, because he started off talking about the need to move forward and not talk the language of boycotts, sanctions and so on, but I was listening carefully to what he said, just as I read carefully the article that he wrote on Left Foot Forward, and it seemed to me that the conclusion he drew was that there was a need for boycotts and sanctions on Hamas. I agree with a number of the things that he said about Hamas. It is a pretty reprehensible organisation in many ways, but the idea of saying that because there is an organisation in control of Gaza not only that we disapprove of but that commits some heinous crimes—it does—that justifies, excuses or places as something to be dealt with at a later date the situation facing the ordinary people of Gaza is one that I just cannot go along with. The reason is a moral one, but there is also a legal one. It is called collective punishment. Collective punishment is illegal under international law, and that is what has been happening to Gaza. It has been happening in a very extreme form since 2007, but it was going on from 2005; actually it was going on before that, before the Israeli withdrawal, as well. Were it not going on before that, why was there ever a need for an agreement on movement and access in 2005?

My hon. Friend says that it is wrong to count the bodies, and that is true. Often, debates just get stuck on that, but when we look at the horror of what is going on in Gaza, some figures do bear repeating. The last big military conflict there, Operation Protective Edge, left 2,205 Gazans dead; 1,483 were civilians and 521 were children. The reason I say that is not just to give the statistics, but to pose the question: what if that happened here? In the UK, it would have meant that 76,800 people were killed; 51,456 would have been civilians and 18,000 would have been children. One quarter of the population of Gaza is still displaced to this day. It would have meant 16 million people in the UK displaced.

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

I certainly regret the loss of human life in Gaza, but is my hon. Friend aware that the work conducted by the Meir Amit intelligence and terrorism information centre has shown that 52% of those who died were actually terrorists? Forty-eight per cent—a regrettable figure—were civilians, but 52% were terrorists.

[Richard Burden]

I am not aware of that particular organisation. I am aware that the Israeli Government have queried the figures compiled by a number of respected international organisations. I assume that that is what my hon. Friend is referring to.

Operation Protective Edge and the war last year was an appalling thing, but the real tragedy of Gaza is what goes on. It means that farmers can be shot and are shot just because they approach a border fence. Let us think about what the response would be if Hamas said it was entirely legitimate to shoot people in Sderot because they were getting too close to the border with Gaza. If it works one way, it should work the other. Let us imagine what it is like. My hon. Friend who secured the debate referred to the sea. There is a blockade by sea. Actually, what we have had recently in the waters outside Gaza is the interception of fishing boats. That happens regularly. In one case recently, three children on a fishing boat were required by Israeli gunboats to leap into the sea without their clothes on while the fishing boat that they had been occupying was sunk.

Middle East and North Africa

Debate between Louise Ellman and Richard Burden

Thursday 17th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Richard Burden]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point and speaks with a wealth of experience.

The question is, what do we do? First of all, if there is going to be a ceasefire, as we all hope, it has to be serious and it has to work. Secondly, let us not make life any more difficult from our side. Every time Britain supplies arms to Israel—we do not supply arms to Hamas, because there is an arms embargo—we do so under strict criteria called the EU consolidated criteria, with the condition that they are not to be used for external aggression or internal repression. Under the Labour Government—and I think under this Government—use in the occupied territories was seen to run contrary to that condition. Every time there is a flare-up, it is asked, “Were British arms used?” At best, the reply is “We are not quite sure”; at worst, it is, “Probably, yes, they were.” Every time, we say that to Israel, but it happens again, so my first question to the Minister is: are British arms being used? If they are, what will we do to stop it? If we do not know, there should be an arms embargo.

The next point is that if we want a ceasefire to turn into peace, we have to tackle the causes. There is a narrative that says that if Hamas just stopped its rockets, things would be okay—the idea is that quiet will be met with quiet. The last time there was a flare-up like this one was in November 2012. In November 2013 the United Nations—not Hamas, not the Palestinians, but the United Nations—produced a humanitarian bulletin from OCHA, the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs. I quote:

“November marked one year since the Egyptian-mediated ceasefire understanding between Israel and Hamas, which ended an eight day escalation of hostilities. The year that passed has witnessed the lowest level of violence and civilian casualties registered in Gaza and southern Israel in 13 years. Additionally, there has been limited improvement in people’s access to fishing areas at sea and to farming areas along the fence with Israel. Overall, however, Gaza has seen a deterioration in living conditions. The majority of the Israeli imposed restrictions on the movement of people and goods to and from the Gaza Strip have remained in place, with at least one of them (import of building materials) tightened.”

That same humanitarian report also talked about the growing sanitation and water crisis in Gaza and an escalation in dispossessions and demolitions in East Jerusalem. That was during a period of relative quiet.

I was in the west bank at the end of last year with my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw). We saw dispossessions being threatened and schools threatened with demolition to make way for settlements. Someone might say that I have my own view on the issue and that it is not unbiased, so let us not listen to me; we will listen to the United Nations again. This is from 2 June this year:

“UNRWA is gravely concerned about recent steps taken by the Israeli authorities that appear to advance plans to transfer Palestinian Bedouin communities in the central West Bank, the large majority of which consist of Palestine refugees.”

That report goes on to say that they are

“located in the E1 and Ma’ale Adumim areas, which are slated for further Israeli settlement development. Additionally in recent months, the ICA appears to be intensifying measures that are displacing or threatening to displace many of the Bedouin communities targeted for transfer.”

It simply is not true that quiet is met by quiet. Quiet is met by continued settlement building, displacement and occupation. We should not think that there will be a real and lasting peace unless those things are addressed; there will not be.

Imagine if the tables were turned—that somehow, in that mythical world, the Palestinians suddenly got the kind of military power that Israel has, and said, “We want to build some settlements in Galilee. A lot of Palestinians live there. We want to take over the homes of a few Jewish Israelis and build there.” Are we honestly saying that all the west would say to that is, “That’s not a very good thing to do—please stop”? Of course we would not. We would demand that they stop. We would talk about international law—and we would be right to—and would implement it.

[Mrs Ellman]

My hon. Friend is talking about important but wider issues. Does he agree that Hamas should stop firing rockets targeted at Israeli citizens?

[Richard Burden]

I think it was pretty clear from my opening remarks that the answer to that is an unequivocal yes, but that gets us no further. It is a statement of fact that Hamas should stop firing rockets, and that if it fires rockets at civilian areas that is a war crime that deserves to be condemned. It has to stop; I say that to Hamas. However, that does not in any way justify a continued occupation. My point is that unless we tackle that issue we will not move towards peace. In plain speaking, settlement building is illegal.

North Africa and the Near and Middle East

Debate between Louise Ellman and Richard Burden

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burden]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Shalit prisoner swap is a recent example, and there was engagement with Hamas in relation to the release of Alan Johnston, the British journalist, a while ago. It is true that there are double standards, and if there is one thing that really gets to ordinary Palestinians and people throughout the Arab world, and to an awful lot of people beyond, it is the fact that, when it comes to Israel and Palestine, we suddenly adopt a different set of standards from those that we would see as absolutely incontrovertible anywhere else. That undermines our credibility and influence in that part of the world, and it undermines the peace process rather than taking it forward.

These are not theoretical questions. We have heard, just in the past few days, that simply because Hamas and Fatah are talking together, which might lead to reconciliation, Israel has threatened to cut off water and electricity supplies to Gaza—collective punishment of an entire population because their political leaders are talking together. Now, we either say something about that or we do not. We either take a firm stand on that or we do not. I know which side of the fence I am on.

That point does not just apply to dealing with political Islam. It was not long ago that any time anyone urged dialogue or engagement with Hamas, the call came from Israel that that would be beyond the pale and was impossible because they were terrorists. However, if it was just those nice people from Fatah or the PLO, such as Abu Mazen—Mahmoud Abbas—we could deal with them. But what has been the crime that Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah and the secular organisations have committed recently? Their crime has been to go to the United Nations and say, “Just give us the same rights as you have given Israel for 63 years.” From the reaction of Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel and, sadly, the United States—and, even more sadly, of some people in this Chamber—it might be thought that those organisations had somehow declared war on Israel. The approach to the United Nations was described as “a unilateral move”. I cannot think of an organisation that is more multilateral than the United Nations.

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have listened carefully to the comments that my hon. Friend has made about Hamas’s involvement in the peace process. Does he maintain his position in the light of a statement made by a senior Hamas leader in Gaza in October, who said,

“We are not going to accept Israel as the owner of 1 sq centimetre because it is a fabricated state”?

[Richard Burden]

That does not alter my view at all. My hon. Friend has illustrated precisely the point that I was making. On both sides of the debate, we can all produce quote after quote to give us an excuse not to engage in dialogue; to decide that our side is right; to decide that the other side are not worth talking to. It is Hamas now, but she may have made a few speeches a few years ago saying the same kind of thing about Yasser Arafat or about Fatah. That does not get us anywhere. It does not get me anywhere to say, because I can produce a load of quotes from someone like Lieberman—or even the Prime Minister of Israel, Mr Netanyahu—that they should be kicked out of negotiations, even if we all then pat ourselves on the back and say that we had done a good job.

If we are serious about peace, we have to contribute to peace. It is an old cliché, but it is right—peace is made not between friends, but between enemies. Unless we are prepared to try to reach out, not to our enemies, but to the enemies in the middle east and try to get them talking, what are we doing other than just acting as cheerleaders for one side or the other?

I was in Israel and Palestine last week. The situation there never loses its capacity to shock. Settlement building is continuing apace, in defiance of international law and despite having been condemned eight times in six months —or is it six times in eight months—by the Government. I know that the Minister is aware of the issue, but I ask him to pay particular regard to an area which became known as Area C in the Oslo process, which is one of the more rural areas of the west bank, and the encroachment of settlements and the dispossession of Palestinians there. When maps of the future Palestinian state are discussed, the focus is often on towns—on Ramallah, Bethlehem, Nablus and Tulkarm. All those places are important, but so too are the bits in between and the people who live there.

As we speak, Bedouin who are already refugees—in the main, they come from the Negev in what is now Israel and have been living in the west bank for decades—face forced displacement and dispossession to make way for settlements. I visited the school of Khan al Ahmar, just outside Jerusalem, which is under threat of demolition. There are two petitions going on, one to demolish the Khan al Ahmar school and one to demolish the Khan Al Ahmar community. One petition comes from the settlement just behind the area and one from the Israeli civil Administration in the west bank. That community, including the civilians—in fact, they are all civilians—and the children, face dispossession. Forced displacement of people by an occupying power is illegal under international law. We should not be scared to say that, nor to require Israel to abide by international law.

Even if those Bedouin were forcefully displaced to a palace it would be wrong. But the proposal is not to displace them to a palace. Instead, Israel proposes to displace them to a site next to Jerusalem’s municipal rubbish dump. I went to that rubbish dump and I saw the pipes that allow methane to escape. I saw a tanker appear, belching sewage from its back, and I saw where the land is being levelled to put Bedouin communities within 500 metres of the dump. As far as I know, that contravenes all health and safety regulations in that area.

Israel is beginning to notice the growing international condemnation of this proposal. It is no accident that access to the rubbish dump is now being blocked off by security blocks like those seen in other parts of the west bank. They have now appeared at the entrances to the rubbish dump—perhaps it has suddenly become a security risk. It may in fact be about stopping foreign visitors—and brave Israelis—from going there to bear witness to what is going on.

These things are wrong, and we should not be scared to say so. Settlement building is also dismantling the chances of a two-state solution before our eyes. The settlement building is not just displacing people to make way for settlers: it is increasingly severing the west bank into cantons or Bantustans that will not be viable as a state—unless we stop it. I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House, whether we consider ourselves friends of Palestine or of Israel, will demand that that process stops.

My final point is about child prisoners. We have already mentioned the prisoner swap that rightly led to the release of Gilad Shalit and of some 500 Palestinian prisoners. The second phase of that prisoner swap will take place over the coming weeks. There are 150 Palestinian children in Israeli military detention, but so far, none of those is scheduled to be part of that prisoner swap. Several recent delegations to the west bank and Israel—organised by the Britain-Palestine all-party group, which I chair, and other organisations—have been to the Israeli military courts where those children are tried. Like other hon. Members, I had already read the testimonies about how the laws applying to Palestinian children are different from those applying to Israeli children; about how Palestinian children are tried in military courts, but Israeli children, even in the occupied territories, are tried in civilian courts; about how many Palestinian children are given bail compared with how many Israeli children are given bail. But I was not prepared for the sight in a military prison—one of the most secure compounds I have ever visited—of 14-year-old boys shuffling in wearing leg-irons and handcuffs for their court hearings. All members of the all-party parliamentary group who were on that visit made the decision that we were not prepared to shut up about this. Something had to be done. Whatever one’s views on the occupation, on Israel and on the peace process, shackling 14-year-old boys is wrong. It is against the UN convention on the rights of the child and it is inhuman.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Ellman]

I acknowledge that the Palestinian Authority has played a constructive role in the attempt to make progress. That is clear from the way in which it has worked with the Quartet and others on the west bank, the dramatic increase in prosperity there, and the way in which—again, working with the Quartet—it has developed its security forces and the civil administration. That could easily and quickly make Palestine into a viable and successful country, if only the political negotiations could make progress. I also think it important for the Palestinian Authority to recognise that the solution lies in urgent negotiations rather than declarations at the United Nations which, in practice, will not solve any of the practical and difficult problems that need to be addressed. The Palestinian Authority should be urged to return to those negotiations.

[Richard Burden]

I know that my hon. Friend is not happy about the reference to the United Nations—she and I disagree about that—but may I invite her to answer the question that was put by the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood)? Irrespective of whether she feels, or Israel feels, that it is a good idea for the Palestinians to go to the United Nations, does she think that it helps the peace process for Israel to respond by continuing and accelerating its settlement building, and by cutting off tax revenues that are owed to the Palestinian Authority but are being held by Israel?

[Mrs Ellman]

I do not think that those activities are helpful to the quest for peace. I think that the only way in which progress can be made is for the Palestinian Authority to be urged to return to the negotiating table. It is a great shame that when it stopped negotiating and said that it wanted a settlement freeze—I considered that to be a reasonable request, and indeed there was a settlement freeze—the Palestinians did not return to the negotiating table.

It is important to recognise that the role and the views of Hamas do matter. Quotations from Hamas are important, because they reflect the reality. Hamas still does not recognise the validity of the existence of the state of Israel. I am not talking about an argument about borders; it does not recognise the validity of the state of Israel. That is shown clearly in its charter, which states that it is its religious duty to have an Islamic state over the whole of the area in which Israel now exists. That has nothing to do with 1967 borders.

The charter also refers to Jews—not Israelis—running the world and controlling the media, and contains other diatribes against Jews, not just Israelis. As I mentioned earlier, Hamas leaders in Gaza have recently stated

“we are not going to accept Israel as the owner of one square centimeter because it is a fabricated state.”

Those are not just words while Hamas’s rockets continue to rain down on Israeli citizens. If it changes its position, we shall be in a different situation, and I certainly agree that a different approach must be taken. However, no one who believes that Israel’s existence should be guaranteed can accept that it should negotiate about its existence. Yes, it should negotiate about boundaries since 1967, but it should not be called on to negotiate about its existence. Unless the person requesting that is one of the people whom I mentioned earlier, who by “occupied lands” is really referring to Israel’s existence, it is land since 1948.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Ellman]

The whole process brought about changes, but there was acceptance only when Sinn Fein changed its position, and I repeat that I am not aware of its having had a theological determination to eliminate the existence of the British state. Hamas not only has a theological determination to eliminate the state of Israel, but is acting on that by sending its rockets over.

[Richard Burden]

I think I might differ with my hon. Friend on her history of what happened in relation to Northern Ireland, but may I put two questions to her? First, does she accept that, although some things such as the Hamas charter remain as they were and the phrases she quotes are no doubt genuine, there have also been indications coming out of Hamas that, while it may not recognise the state of Israel, it could live with living alongside the state of Israel? Is she aware of that shift, and does she think we should explore and encourage it and see where it can go? Secondly, I agree with her that Israel should not have to negotiate its own existence, but what does she think it sounds like to a Palestinian when she and others say a Palestinian state can only come about through negotiation?

[Mrs Ellman]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. The state of Israel came about because it was internationally recognised—[Interruption.] Following a number of commissions looking into the question of whether there should be a state of Israel, the UN put forward specific boundaries following the work of a special committee that had considered that matter over a number of years, and supported that. That was accepted by the state of Israel, but it was not accepted by the Arab states, which then invaded Israel. That was the origin of how the state of Israel came into existence.

I am aware that from time to time some elements of Hamas are said to have made statements to the effect that they would be prepared to live with Israel, but I cannot think that any state would take that seriously when at the same time much more senior people consistently state they wish to see the end of Israel and, indeed, start to act to do so by sending their rockets, directed at Israeli civilians. We must also bear it in mind that Hamas is not acting alone, but is backed by Iran in respect of training and arms—and Iran is, of course, repeatedly threatening the annihilation of Israel. I therefore think Israel has every right to treat Hamas very sceptically indeed, unless there is an explicit and profound change in its position.

Gaza

Debate between Louise Ellman and Richard Burden

Tuesday 15th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is important that we discuss the shocking events of 31 May, but it is also important that we discuss the context in which they occurred, even though some of the facts about that context disturb a number of people. There may be things that they would rather not hear or know about. However, the facts are that Israeli settlers left Gaza in 2005, but that was followed not by Palestinians and the people of Gaza trying to build a new society and attract international investment. It was followed by the violence of Hamas overthrowing Fatah and engaging in a civil war with it, and by Hamas continuing to state its absolute opposition to the very existence of Israel.

Hamas’s charter is readily available. It constantly puzzles me why people who are legitimately and genuinely concerned about social justice wilfully ignore the contents of that charter in a way that they would not if it belonged to any other organisation. The charter includes statements about killing the Jews. It says that the day of judgment will not come until the Muslims kill the Jews. It says that there is no way except jihad, and that peace conferences and negotiations are a waste of time. It talks about the protocols of the elders of Zion, and the false allegation that Jews run the world. It claims that Jews are responsible for all revolutions, including the French and Russian revolutions. Indeed, the charter goes beyond being anti-Israeli: it is clearly anti-Semitic, and when it is combined with Hamas’s actions in targeting rockets at Israeli civilians, is it surprising that Israelis are genuinely concerned about their security?

There is increasing concern about the involvement of Iran with Hamas in Gaza. That concern was intensified when, last November, a vessel was intercepted off the coast of Cyprus, filled with armaments coming from Iran on their way to Gaza. Those weapons were aimed not only at Sderot, which has suffered too much and for too long, but at Tel Aviv. Israel’s concerns about security are real.

Something needs to be done about the crossings and the current state of affairs. Last June, the European Union said it was willing to contribute to post-conflict arrangements, yet what has happened? Very little. Egypt was also involved in addressing what was happening with the crossings, but it has withdrawn. I hope the statement made by Tony Blair yesterday about new proposals will become a reality, so that the long-suffering people of Gaza can have their needs addressed.

Disturbing questions must be asked about the events of 31 May. Six vessels were involved, and it must be asked why five of those six vessels landed at Ashdod as requested and unloaded their humanitarian aid, while on the sixth vessel something was very different. When those five vessels landed their humanitarian aid at Ashdod, Hamas refused to allow that aid to be delivered to Gaza. That is deplorable, and I do not hear cries of concern and criticism directed at Hamas for taking that action.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is aiming her fire at something nobody in the debate has sought to defend. Why does the picture that she paints of Gaza appear to be so different from the weekly reports given by the United Nations and other agencies about the situation, and about the causes of that situation and Israel’s responsibility for it? Those agencies are there, so why does she think they have got it so dreadfully wrong? I suggest that it might be a good idea for her—and a number of other hon. Members—to visit Gaza and talk to people there and get their views on their situation.

[Mrs Ellman]

The reality is that Gaza is run by Hamas, an Islamist organisation that is proscribed by the EU, the USA and Canada as a terrorist organisation. Its regime has led to this dreadful situation for the people of Gaza. That cannot be ignored; it is a fact. More questions need to be asked about that flotilla, focusing on that sixth vessel. What is the role of the Turkish IHH—again, a charitable organisation linked to Hamas and other terrorist organisations? What about the recording that was made in relation to that sixth vessel, showing that when the Israelis repeatedly asked it to land at Ashdod, the reply came back, “Go back to Auschwitz”? What about the fact that people on that sixth vessel were armed with metal rods with knives, and that a lynching of Israelis was attempted? I have no doubt that the majority of people on those vessels were genuine peace activists, but were they infiltrated by somebody else with other ideas?

What about the reports that we have seen since those events in the Turkish media? Families of people who were regrettably killed on that vessel have stated that their partner—the husband in one case—said that he wanted to be a martyr. Even more damning, what about the broadcast that was made on Hamas TV on 30 May, the day before the incident happened, when a university lecturer said that the participants in that flotilla wanted to die as martyrs even more than they wanted to reach Gaza? What a condemnation.