Gaza (Humanitarian Situation) Debate
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Philip Hollobone
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Gaza (Humanitarian Situation)
Philip Hollobone Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
You are a good man, Mr Hood.
I have been to the Gaza strip twice: once with Interpal, with the hon. Members for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) and for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), and once with Caabu and the all-party group on Palestine, with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden).
My take is that, yes, the humanitarian situation is dire. But there will be no solution to the problem of the Gaza strip unless, first, the security situation is sorted out and, secondly, proper economic links are restored both with the state of Israel and with the state of Egypt.
When the Northamptonshire regiment went into Gaza in the first world war and took part in the three battles of Gaza there was no water, so it built a water pipeline from the River Nile to Gaza. That should be considered today. The problem is the Sinai and the security situation there; Hamas-backed terrorists are just as much of a problem to Egypt as to the state of Israel. If Hamas is taken out of the equation, the security situation begins to be addressed and then the economic links between both sovereign states can be tackled.
All of us want the humanitarian situation in the Gaza strip sorted out, but we simply will not make any progress if all the condemnation is against Israel. Instead, we should be looking at the practical economic realities on the ground, where the Palestinians in the Gaza strip simply want to resume their trading life—as they always did—with both Israelis and Egyptians.