Gaza: UK Assessment Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Oliver Dowden
Main Page: Oliver Dowden (Conservative - Hertsmere)Department Debates - View all Oliver Dowden's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(1 day, 22 hours ago)
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Mr Falconer
I thank my hon. Friend, who I know has been long committed to these issues and used to be an aid worker herself. She is a doughty advocate on these points. We remain absolutely committed to a two-state solution. We are focusing all our diplomatic efforts on ensuring that the current approach is changed, that we return to a diplomatic solution, and that we have a ceasefire, the release of hostages and a move back to that two-state solution, which, as she rightly puts it, is vital.
Sir Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)
The situation in Gaza is clearly intolerable, and Israel has to find a way of getting aid in safely and without diversion. But does the Minister agree that we need to be very careful about the use of the word “genocide” and that we do not devalue the word? It is used to describe the systematic and deliberate murder of 6 million Jews by Nazi Germany. We must question whether—and I do not believe that—a war designed to release hostages and remove a terrorist threat, against terrorists that hide among the civilian population, crosses that threshold.
Mr Falconer
It is the long-standing position of Governments of all stripes that it is for international courts to make determinations of that nature, and we will abide by our obligations under international humanitarian law.