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Israel (War against Terror)

My hon. Friend raises an interesting point. Indeed, my father was in the British Army in the middle east at that time, and was based at the King David hotel. As it happened, he had just gone out for a sandwich, otherwise I would not be here today. Of course, there are some big differences between the two events. We now know that the Irgun Zvai Leumi made an alarm call to the hotel but that it was ignored by the British forces. We must also remember that it was British forces who were based at the hotel, not innocent civilians. I do not condone terrorism, but to compare what the terrorist organisation Irgun Zvai Leumi did to the King David hotel with the blowing up of innocent civilians in night clubs in Israel is completely and utterly false. It is our responsibility to take every conceivable measure to combat worldwide terrorism and to stand up to those who aim to destroy our values. We must ally ourselves with states such as Israel that share our ideals of freedom and democracy, and have enjoyed success in fighting terrorism. The terrorists who attack Israel and those who attack Britain have one aim—to destroy the western values of freedom and democracy, and to install an extremist form of Islam in the shape of a worldwide caliphate. We have seen the oppression inflicted through sharia law by the Taliban in Afghanistan and by the fundamentalist regime in Iran. Anti-western hostility drives the global terror networks. Fundamentalist Islamists do not hate the west because of Israel; they hate Israel because the state of Israel is a bulwark of democracy, Judeo-Christian ethics of tolerance, western progress and freedom in the middle east. The purpose of today’s debate is to recognise the global nature of terrorism, which is supported and aided by state sponsors of terrorism, and to urge the Government to take all necessary measures against those states that prop up radical Islamist terrorist organisations and to co-operate with Israel in the face of continued threats to its existence by hostile neighbours—the state sponsors of terrorism, Iran and Syria, and the terrorist groups that they support. There is no international terrorism without the support of states. International terrorism cannot be sustained for long without the regimes that aid and abet it. Terrorists cannot operate in a vacuum. They train, arm and indoctrinate their killers in safe havens in territories provided by radical states. Those regimes often provide the terrorists with intelligence, money and operational assistance, dispatching them to serve as deadly proxies to wage a hidden war against more powerful enemies. The Iranian regime is a principal player in supporting global terrorism, as our forces in Basra have found to their cost. Since 1979, when the Islamic republic was established, the Iranian regime has viewed terrorism as a legitimate means to further its ideological and strategic aims—exporting the revolution, assisting worldwide Islamist groups and attacking Israel. Hezbollah, Iran’s Shi’ite revolutionary proxy in southern Lebanon, is the spearhead for Iran’s export of terrorism, aimed globally and particularly at Israel. Iran also supports Palestinian terrorist groups, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Britain and Israel share a common interest—the common threat posed by Hezbollah. Not only does Hezbollah target Israelis and Jews across the world, from Argentina to north Africa, but it provides Shi’a militias in Iraq with weaponry and training in terrorist tactics to kill British soldiers. With representation in 40 countries, Hezbollah has the capability to prepare attacks against western interests.