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North Africa and the Middle East

I will proceed for a moment. I think I can anticipate the kind of thing my hon. Friend would say if I were to give way to her. The Israelis kill Palestinians whenever they feel inclined. They have killed two this very week, and the blockade of Gaza—of 1.5 million people—is totally illegal. Rebuilding after the havoc caused by the Israeli invasion has been minimal because of the Israeli embargo on the entrance of many supplies. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency reported to me on the appalling effect on nutrition of the Israeli blockade. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children are growing up malnourished, and that affects both their physical and mental growth. The estimable head of UNRWA, whom I have met several times, says that the alleged easing of the blockade, following the Israeli attack on the flotilla on 31 May, has made the situation worse. He himself has given up and is taking on another assignment outside Palestine. Of course, the Israeli navy does not hesitate to commit piracy in international waters, either. The Israelis have the most extremist Government in their history, with a Foreign Minister who is actively racist and overtly advocates ethnic cleansing. The Israeli Parliament, elected by proportional representation, which should be a warning to us all about changing electoral systems, now persecutes non-governmental organisations that work for progress and racial harmony. The Israelis do not believe in a two-state solution and are completely uninterested in any kind of genuine peace process, yet what is being done to curb this regime? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. They get away with it by exploiting guilt over the holocaust. They get away with it by whimpering about their need for security, when they have the strongest armed forces in the region, nuclear weapons and the fourth-strongest armed forces in the world. They get away with it, because Obama, apprehensive about the United States presidential election next year, is scared of Jewish pressure groups in the United States. The world's tolerance of the Israeli persecution of 5 million Palestinians is a blot on whatever international morality exists. When Palestinians commit atrocities, as with the murderous attack on the Fogel family of settlers last weekend, there is justifiable anger. Israeli soldiers shot two Palestinian parents dead in front of their children in Gaza, as those children told me: the girl stood there, an Israeli soldier shot her father in the head, and then shot her mother in the head. When things like that happen, nobody bats an eyelid. We are right to be profoundly concerned about Libya and about the lethal tension in certain Gulf states. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South is absolutely right when he says that if the people of Libya go under, other countries will take that as a lesson that suppressing their populations by force works. This is a very big test for the entire world community. We are right to be vigilant about Tunisia, and right to keep an anxious eye on Egypt to ensure that the revolution there is not baulked or frustrated. But until the world takes action to force Israel to deal justly with the Palestinians, the middle east will remain a turbulent and dangerous region and a blot on all our consciences.