Gaza Border Violence Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Angus Brendan MacNeil
Main Page: Angus Brendan MacNeil (Independent - Na h-Eileanan an Iar)Department Debates - View all Angus Brendan MacNeil's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Alistair Burt
My hon. Friend deserves to be heard. The Palestinian Authority have been in regular contact with Hamas. I think that the Palestinian Authority share the despair of many others in relation to the circumstances in Gaza. They have recently made attempts to seek a new political solution in Gaza that will lead to a unified authority that can only be accepted by people outside on the terms of the Quartet. We continue to see members of the Palestinian Authority as those who, if they keep driving for that and driving for peace, will be proper partners in the process.
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
I recall that in this House on 15 January 2009, the then Member for Manchester, Gorton, Gerald Kaufman, said:
“My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of Staszow. A German soldier shot her…in her bed.”
He continued:
“My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering…grandmothers in Gaza.”—[Official Report, 15 January 2009; Vol. 486, c. 407.]
That should apply to anybody else—whether 58 or 2,000 more. Will the UK Government borrow from the late Gerald Kaufman’s language, and state that Palestinian lives are as precious as Israeli lives and that those who reportedly cheered yesterday in Israel, “Burn them, shoot them, kill them,” are beyond contempt?
Alistair Burt
All lives are indeed sacred. That anyone, in any circumstances, should cheer the results of actions in which people lose their lives means that they are losing a connection to something very valuable. It is the duty of this House, notwithstanding the anger and upset that we often feel, to try to find a way through. The hon. Gentleman’s concern that all lives should be held in the same regard is absolutely correct.