Gaza

Debate between Michael McCann and Grahame Morris

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr McCann]

As a member of the Select Committee on International Development who visited the Occupied Palestinian Territories and saw first hand the tragic circumstances that the Palestinians face, I hope that the Palestinian leadership want to take all steps necessary to improve the plight of their people. Goodness, surely that would be immeasurably improved if the people who are causing the problems and violence stopped doing that.

Demilitarisation should be a prerequisite, because as my hon. Friend knows, until that is done, there will not be a willing partner in the state of Israel to participate in talks. It strikes me—perhaps he missed the first part of my contribution—that we continually look backwards at the problem and do not look forward. In my coming words I hope to look in that forward direction and make a positive contribution to a proposal for peace.

As I mentioned, President Abbas calls Hamas a “shadow Government” and the renewed tensions between Hamas and Fatah since last autumn are ominous. When Hamas’s reconciliation agreement with Fatah was under pressure in June last year, it responded by kidnapping and murdering three Israeli teenagers, which was a precursor that provoked the war. Reconstruction and the political and security environment are inseparable issues and I cannot fathom anyone who says otherwise. I have received correspondence from charities and NGOs who work in the area and, based on my visit to the area and witnessing such events first hand, they are deluded if they think that investment can be put in without dealing with the military and security issues.

The people of Gaza have been the casualties of those failures. The lives of the Palestinians living in Gaza must be improved through reconstruction and by the lifting of restrictions on imports and exports, as the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) said a few moments ago. The blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt restricts not only the movement of people and goods in and out of the territory, but any prospect of much needed economic development and prosperity, and any prospect of the alleviation of poverty. If poverty is the breeding ground of terror, cannot prosperity be a catalyst for peace?

While the Palestinian Authority and Hamas argue over salaries and who controls what, the Israelis have kept Gaza supplied, and while Hamas has concentrated on guns and bombs, and with access to Egypt completely closed, Israel has allowed 43,000 residents from Gaza to purchase building materials for personal use. It has also allowed students to cross the border to study and, contrary to what was said in contributions made in the 1 December debate, people have been able to travel to the al-Aqsa mosque and visit their families in Israel.

I completely recognise that there is a massive journey still to be undertaken, but for Israel and Egypt to open up Gaza crossings further and to allow the maximum amount of material in, they must be given credible guarantees about their own security, with assurances that Gaza will no longer be used as a base for terrorist activity. I will be happy to take any interventions from hon. Members who want to condemn or make that point.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I did not really want to intervene, but I must quickly challenge my hon. Friend on a number of issues. I listened to a Palestinian last night in the room adjacent who was denied access to the Gaza strip to visit his dying father, who was denied the opportunity to transfer from Gaza to a specialist hospital. Perhaps he died because of that. Is my hon. Friend seriously supporting the blockade, which predates Hamas’s control of Gaza, as a collective punishment? Surely all the United Nations agencies and charities—[Interruption.]

[Mr Jim Hood (in the Chair)]

Order. The intervention is too long.

Palestine

Debate between Michael McCann and Grahame Morris

Monday 1st December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Grahame M. Morris]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Another purpose of this debate is to take the momentum from that previous debate and put various points to the Minister on what we can do to move things forward, level the playing field and encourage a return to negotiations. Part of that has to involve applying further pressure to the Israeli Government, perhaps through economic sanctions and by highlighting some of the iniquities of trading with illegal settlements on the west bank.

[Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)]

The danger of my hon. Friend’s contribution is that he is coming at the problem from only one direction. Does he not agree that the same pressure has to be applied to the Palestinians so that they come to the negotiating table? Ultimately, all their problems will be solved only if the two peoples start dancing together in a tango, rather than looking at the problems through the prism of one side.

[Grahame M. Morris]

The purpose of this debate is to identify some of the obstacles to moving forward to a just and equitable solution. It seems as if many of the obstacles that I and other Members have mentioned in relation to child prisoners, the demolition of Bedouin villages, settler violence and illegal settlements, are a consequence of the occupying power’s actions. We must address those obstacles and help to defuse the tensions and growing violence in the west bank—particularly in Jerusalem—before we can move forward. I hope to develop that argument.