Palestinian Children and Israeli Military Detention

Debate between Sarah Champion and Joan Ryan

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Joan Ryan]

I will not.

We see that policy in the naming of schools and sports tournaments after terrorists; in the newly revised curriculum, which asks students, as a maths exercise, to calculate the number of martyrs in Palestinian uprisings; and in the countless examples of anti-Semitism that litter children’s TV programmes on official Palestinian Authority TV.

[Sarah Champion]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Joan Ryan]

I will not, at this point.

We must register our deep and continuing concern at the Palestinian leadership’s attempt to recruit children into committing acts of violence. In December Fatah posted a photograph to its Twitter account of a young boy hurling rocks with a slingshot, together with a guide to how best to throw a rock. Let us remember that Yehuda Haim Shoham, one year-old Jonathan Palmer and three-year-old Adele Biton were all killed as a result of stones being thrown at cars they were travelling in.

Finally, it is important that we show our deep and continuing concern at the recruitment of children into Palestinian armed groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. As Child Soldiers International has stated:

“Children received military training and are used as messengers and couriers, and in some cases as fighters and suicide bombers.”

If we do not acknowledge and address those very serious issues, we run the risk of this debate being seen less as a matter of the welfare of Palestinian children and more as simply another opportunity to attack Israel.