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Gaza

There have been a number of excellent speeches this afternoon. I commend the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) for making some excellent points and I should like to bring light to what was said by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short), who spoke with passion about the reality on the ground in Gaza. The hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) touched on the historic nature of the issue, and a number of Members have tried to clutch at some point at which all this started. There is a great temptation for some to say that it all started when Hamas, or whoever, started firing rockets into Israel. That is a very simplistic way of looking at this conflict, and it takes us nowhere. A couple of years ago, I visited Jerusalem and Bethlehem. In Bethlehem, I bumped into an old lady on the streets and was introduced to her as a British Member of Parliament. She said, ““I'm glad you've come because you need to sort out the mess that you started.”” In some people's view, the history of the problem goes right back to the 1920s. To argue that a person is guilty for this or that action takes us nowhere. I wish briefly to discuss a small incident that affects a constituent of mine, and then touch on a general point about war crimes. On 30 December 2008 at about 05:30 hours EMT, an aid ship, the MV Dignity, was 53 miles off the coast of Israel when it was rammed by a coastguard cutter vehicle from the Israeli navy. It bore a Gibraltar flag and therefore sailed with British protection. There were 16 passengers on board, and aid to be taken to Gaza. There were three doctors—one Irish, one English, and one Palestinian. Also on board was Cynthia McKinney, an American Congresswoman, and reporters from CNN and al-Jazeera. The ship was organised by the Free Gaza Movement. The ship left Larnaca, Cyprus, at 7 pm on the evening of 29 December. At 4.55 am on 30 December, it was about 70 miles off the Israeli coast when those on board saw big searchlights at the stern. For about 30 minutes, the searchlights hovered around them, occasionally being taken away and brought back on. Flares were put up into the air by the Israelis. Two gun boats had been circling them for this period, with no radio contact despite calls from the master of the Dignity. The Israelis turned off the searchlights and all went quiet. Then, without warning, there was a massive crash in the bow, the Dignity began to splinter and suffered severe damage to the bow. The Dignity began to take on water but, thankfully, was not sinking. The master of the Dignity immediately put out a mayday call but got no response. The Israelis eventually spoke, stating that those on board were terrorists and threatening to shoot at the Dignity. They demanded that the Dignity return to Larnaca, but it did not have enough fuel to do so. Eventually, the Dignity received help from the Lebanese and headed for Lebanon guided by the Lebanese navy. That prompts serious questions about the conduct of the Israeli navy, in that it can make an unprovoked attack on a ship taking aid and supplies to the people of Gaza. If the Israelis genuinely thought that there were terrorists on board the ship, why did they not do what any British naval vessel would do—try to board it? Why did they not try to find out what was being carried on the ship? No—instead they rammed it, putting everyone's lives at risk. I know that the Foreign Secretary has promised to look into this incident, but I hope that there will be a full investigation. If these events are proved to be true, I hope that the Israeli ambassador will be called in to see the Foreign Secretary so that it can be explained to him that this is not acceptable behaviour and is against the laws of the sea. Let me turn briefly to the issue of war crimes. If white phosphorous has been used—it looks very likely that it has—and one looks at the overall way in which the Israelis have hemmed in and treated the Palestinians in Gaza, they have committed war crimes. People will argue that it was a one-off, that it was an accident and they did not mean to do it, or that it was justifiable in the circumstances. However, if a nation has a track record of breaking international law in such incidents, one has to question what people's motives were and whether they really knew what they were doing. In Lebanon, 1 million unexploded cluster bombs were left lying on the ground, 90 per cent. of which were fired in the last 72 hours before the deal was done in New York and the start of the ceasefire. If that is not using cluster bombs as mines, I do not know what is, and that is a war crime.