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Middle East

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. In a similar way I condemn the Palestinians and their supporters for using those children as human shields, as has also happened in Afghanistan and Iraq. There seems to be a significant difference of view of the value of human life between Muslims and Christians and Jews. That is a cultural difference with which we must cope. I am deeply and gravely concerned that the position of our country and the security of our people at home are being undermined because of the Government’s incompetent management of that difficult crisis. Let me remind hon. Members of what has happened at home. Some 200,000 Muslims supported the actions of the London bus and tube bombers and yet when Muslim leaders wrote a letter to The Times it was condemned by the Government as an excuse for terrorism. That letter warned that there are some people who would already be supporting terror and asked how anyone could believe that those attacks were nothing to do with the events in the wider middle east that had led up to them. I am gravely concerned that we have a minority in this country who are becoming more extreme or have a significant number of extremists among them. I believe that whether they were born here or move here they should adopt our way of life, our customs and our democratic way of settling disputes. They should not fight foreign battles on our streets.