Israel and Gaza - Statement

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 9:13 pm on 23 October 2023.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Baroness Deech Baroness Deech Crossbench 9:13, 23 October 2023

My Lords, I also welcome the kind and supportive Statement we have just heard. It comes as a ray of light in the farrago of disinformation that we are getting. I have three points to raise.

First, on the question of aid, over the last decades billions of dollars have been channelled into the Palestinian territories, largely through UNRWA. Where has it all gone? The concrete that was supposed to build houses has apparently been used for nefarious purposes and for hiding. What has happened to all that money from all over the world, which appears to have been used by Hamas to get rockets and to make trouble, rather than supporting their people?

Secondly, the two-state solution is all very well. However, as long as the call goes out “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, we know that “From the river to the sea” means the total annihilation of Israel and its replacement with one state. A state has been offered on four occasions to the Palestinians and rejected.

Thirdly, I hope the Government will have a mind to the trouble going on in our universities. Just today I heard from someone connected with Warwick University that two Jewish students there who refused to join a pro-Palestine march have been ostracised and made to feel extremely unwelcome, and that the Jewish society app has been hacked with all sorts of nasty messages. This is simply an example of the sort of thing going on in our universities. Vice-chancellors need to be told to take care of all their students, bearing in mind, of course, freedom of speech, but also bearing in mind the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism. Our young people are on the front line and they are suffering.