Occupied Palestinian Territories: Israeli Settlements

Debate between Richard Graham and Joan Ryan

Thursday 9th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Joan Ryan]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I, too, have visited that project, and it is inspiring. Co-existence is building trust.

I do not believe that trust is built when the Palestinian Authority pumps out an unrelenting stream of anti-Semitic incitement—children’s programmes that teach their young audience to hate Jews; the naming of schools, sports tournaments and streets after so-called martyrs; and the payment of salaries to convicted terrorists—when it is suggested, as Palestinian state media regularly does, that all of Israel is occupied territory; or when the authority continues to insist on a right to return for the descendants of Palestinian refugees to pre-1967 Israeli territory.

[Richard Graham]

rose—

[Joan Ryan]

I will not give way just now.

I do not believe that trust has been built by the experience of Gaza—territory that Israel unilaterally withdrew from 12 years ago only to see it come under the control of Hamas, which is committed to the creation of a Palestinian Islamist state from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean sea.