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Gaza

My Lords, as a member of the Coexistence Trust led by the noble Lord, Lord Janner, and as a teacher of Islam and the Middle East at the University of York, I thought that one of my major functions as both a teacher and a participant is to avoid labelling and stereotypes. Just as we feel that anti-Semitism is unacceptable, we must also think that Islamophobia is unacceptable. I worry about terminology about Middle Eastern barbarism, Islamic extremism, taking al-Qaeda, bin Laden and the entire Muslim community as a single cohort, or even saying that my natal country, Iran, is involved in everything. That gives Iran disproportionate power, which it does not have—fortunately. First, I ask for clear thinking about who we are talking about, what we are saying and for us not to demonise anyone in this whole affair. In my capacity as chair of the Muslim Women's Network, we have already written to the Foreign Office and had meetings about the plight of women and children. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford for raising the problem of women and children. The most important thing that we have left in Palestine is its people. We know that more than half of the population of Gaza are children. We also know that more than one third of those who were injured in the conflict were women and children. To cite a recent e-mail from paediatrician Jazir Kawkuby, who works at Great Ormond Street, but is currently working in the Shifa Hospital in Gaza, children have been coming in with multiple trauma injuries: severe burns; amputated legs; multiple penetration injuries; and internal trauma caused by explosion within their bodies. Their suffering continues, not least because of the lack of medication—I support the demand of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, that at least medical help must get there. Traumatised children make for traumatised people and good ground for extremism. The terrible truth about traumatised children is that they cannot be cured by an injection or by saying that one thing is something else—that they have an injury. I am the honorary president of International Services, which is one of the few non-governmental agencies that has continued its presence in Palestine, although not in Gaza. When we send our workers to that context of violence as helpers, as people to cure events, within a year they burn out. Living under conditions in which many people live in Gaza creates a negative future. People who grow up under those conditions cannot think normally. That is why it may well be that when the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, sits with people on the border of Lebanon, they do not want to see Israel. I had a student who was doing her PhD studying the rise of Hezbollah. Sitting in England, she could not quite work out why Hezbollah was so successful. She was in Lebanon at the border areas when they were being bombed. She sent me a text saying: ““Haleh, why is nobody reporting what is happening to us?””. That arrived the day before my daughter’s wedding, and we were knee-deep in flowers and organising. I sat in my office and e-mailed 55 journalists whom I knew personally, asking ““Why is this not being reported?””. One journalist, from BBC World Service, reported it. There are silences that need to be broken. What is more, my student who was still in Lebanon said that afterwards only Hezbollah helped everybody; regardless of religion or affiliation, Hezbollah was in there building. Perhaps I may suggest that Hamas is experiencing a similar legitimacy. I agree completely with noble Lords that it is the group on the ground. The only way forward is to accept that, if the people in the Middle East, including Palestinians, elect people as we wish them to, they have a right to expect their elected representatives to represent them. If the West thinks that it can bomb Iraq into democracy, surely we can talk Palestine into democracy; and if they do it, we should respect it. Unless and until we speak the same language to both sides, until we use the same definitions for each side, and unless and until one dead body is as important as another, we will not have peace in the region.