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Middle East

My Lords, the noble Lord should remember that in some ways the position of Hamas as a party to this is even more extreme than that of the IRA in its most difficult times, because, for example, the IRA, for all its appalling violence, never denied the UK’s right to exist. Secondly, only today, as has already been said in the Chamber, Hamas condemned the peace process and the meeting in Annapolis and threatened continued violence. Indeed, every time it fires a rocket into Israel or turns its fire on the Palestinian security forces, it makes it harder to talk to it. On the noble Lord’s fundamental point, however, I certainly agree that all political voices need to be heard at some point. The issue is finding a moment when those political voices have returned to legitimate peaceful discussion.