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Gaza

The right hon. Gentleman is right that it should not only be violence that achieves that, but many countries and individual envoys have been able to talk to Hamas in recent years. The essential problem has been the refusal of Hamas to accept those Quartet conditions and to recognise that the way forward is through the renunciation of violence and a wholehearted commitment to achieving Palestinian national aspirations through politics and negotiation, rather than through the bomb and the bullet.