Arms Export Licences: Israel Debate
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Scott Benton
Main Page: Scott Benton (Independent - Blackpool South)Department Debates - View all Scott Benton's debates with the Department for Business and Trade
(5 months, 1 week ago)
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Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)
It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I thank the hon. Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) for bringing the debate to this Chamber.
Hamas’s barbaric 7 October attack on Israel featured unspeakable acts of brutality and sexual violence. The attacks left 1,200 dead and thousands injured and the bodies of many victims remain unidentifiable due to the severity of the violence. Hamas chose to break an existing ceasefire the day it launched the heinous genocidal attack. Acts of terrorism have not ceased since and more than 12,000 rockets have been launched indiscriminately at Israel since 7 October.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Ind)
Israel is fighting a war that it did not want or start against an enemy that shows complete and utter disdain for its own civilian population by embedding its terrorist infrastructure in schools, hospitals and mosques. Does my hon. Friend agree that Israel has a legal right to defend itself and to remove the grave threat posed by a terrorist organisation whose stated aim is to wipe it completely from the world map?
Brendan Clarke-Smith
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He is, of course, absolutely right: Israel does have the right to defend itself. I would argue that the biggest threat to the Palestinian people is not Israel, but Hamas. We must bear that in mind.