I am sorry, but I will not, because of the time.
There are often distractions. Because the European Union has suddenly decided belatedly to impose labelling restrictions, Netanyahu said this morning that he was not going to talk to the EU. It is important that we do not import settlement goods, but, in the great scheme of the occupations, those are details. I can only quote from a recent article in The Guardian by Marwan Barghouti, who is a prisoner in Israel who wrote that
“the last day of occupation will be the first day of peace.”
That is what we should keep our eyes on—the fact that this is a country that has been occupied for many decades, and justice will never be achieved in Palestine until Israeli forces withdraw.
Finally, the Gulf is another issue that needs a whole debate in itself. The Government’s policy on it is just wrong. We support Saudi Arabia, where many barbaric things occur within the regime, and, indeed, Bahrain, where we are building a naval base, and the United Arab Emirates, all of which have appalling human rights records. Such matters cannot be airbrushed and they ought to be reviewed. Nowhere is that clearer than in what is currently happening in Yemen.
I believe that the Foreign Secretary is on the record as saying that the UK will support the Saudi-led coalition
“in every practical way short of engaging in combat.”
As Amnesty International has reported, that has meant a British-made Cruise missile being used in the coalition’s destruction of a ceramics factory, a civilian object, on 23 September in an apparent violation of international humanitarian law. The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Peter Maurer, has said:
“Yemen after five months looks like Syria after five years.”
Yemen’s is a forgotten war. It is a war in which the Saudi-led forces are creating havoc and committing humanitarian outrages daily. That is not to defend the Houthi and other forces, who are equally guilty of atrocities, but it is wrong that—for strategic, tactical or other reasons—the British Government are giving their unqualified support to what the coalition is doing. It is wrong that they are supporting a regime, such as the Bahraini regime in the Gulf, which oppresses the majority of its population and carries out torture and human rights abuses. While the Government are prepared to condemn such abuses in other countries, it appears they
are not prepared to do so in the case of Gulf countries for historical or, indeed, diplomatic reasons, but I believe they should do so.
6.21 pm