It is an honour and a privilege to contribute to this debate to mark Holocaust memorial day 2024. I warmly thank Paul O’Kane for securing parliamentary time for such a poignant and sobering topic. We come together each year in remembrance, so that the Holocaust may never again be repeated.

A tragedy is now unfolding in the middle east. Israel has suffered the worst terror attack in its history at the hands of Hamas, and Palestinian civilians in Gaza are experiencing a humanitarian disaster.

What to say, after 1,200 Israeli men, women and children were slaughtered in 24 hours? Where to begin, after the rising tide of antisemitism that we have witnessed in recent months? Understandably, as we commemorate Holocaust memorial day, we look to the past. The devastating events in Israel and Gaza since October 2023 have shown us that we must also look to the horizon.

Experts argue that genocides do not simply happen; they are the culmination of a series of circumstances or events. They begin with the persecution of a particular group of people simply for who they are and escalate to annihilation—of lives, religion and culture. In a diary entry dated Saturday 20 June 1942, Anne Frank wrote:

“That is when the trouble started for the Jews. Our freedom was severely restricted by a series of anti-Jewish decrees.”

She listed many restrictions in her everyday life, from having to turn in her bicycle to being forbidden from using swimming pools. She said:

“You couldn’t do this and you couldn’t do that, but life went on.”

As other members have touched on, the theme for this year’s Holocaust memorial day is “Fragility of Freedom”. Anne lost her freedoms before she, ultimately, lost her life. The lives of millions of Jews were curtailed before they were brutally cut short. We must understand what precedes genocide and how the seeds of hatred and prejudice are sown, so that we might prevent it from happening again and again.

The conflict in the middle east must not become part of the culture wars that are waged on streets and screens. The nuance and complexity of crisis cannot be effaced for social media likes and views. With the rise of antisemitism incidents across the UK, Europe and the US, I worry that we have reached a tipping point—we cannot allow the clock to turn back.