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Middle East

I am prepared to accept that, too. I am not trying to express the view that one side are the goodies and the others are the baddies in this conflict. There are serious errors on both sides, which it would have been better if our Government had been more equal in recognising. That is the failure of our Government that I so strongly criticise. There were, let us say, few words of condemnation from the Government. There had been plenty of words of condemnation of suicide bombers, but few on the Israeli attacks in Gaza, in particular the attacks on civilian installations, a matter on which our European colleagues, who helped to pay for those installations, were rather less reticent than our Government. The last act—the last act so far, I fear—has been the conflict in Lebanon and the Government’s failure, in line with that of the United States and virtually no other nation, to call for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon. Indeed, they blamed Hezbollah and the seizing of two soldiers for the conflict in Lebanon and Israel’s reaction to the seizing of those soldiers. Human Rights Watch condemns both sides pretty unequivocally for breaches of international law and of internationally recognised human rights. It condemns Hezbollah for hostage taking and using the soldiers as pawns to negotiate the release of prisoners held in Israel, for its indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel and for hiding military targets and personnel in civilian areas, and it condemns Israel over the lawfulness of its attacks on south Lebanon, for the extraordinarily high level of civilian casualties that followed, for its repeated attacks on infrastructure, on Beirut airport, roads and bridges, and for attacks on fleeing civilians. Those were the tactics of the Nazis in 1939 and 1940: attacking fleeing civilians from the air. I know that that offends the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) and I do not mean to do so, but I must tell the truth.