Emergency Motion on Gaza

The situation in Gaza was rightly highlighted in an emergency motion at the Liberal Democrat Conference in Liverpool this morning. This was comfortably passed, unamended. There was only one controversial paragraph, namely:

“Conference calls upon the EU to review with immediate effect whether Israel is in enduring breach of Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement by refusing to accept that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies on a de jure basis to the people of Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territory and whether Israel’s trade privileges under the EU-Israel Association Agreement should be thereby removed until such time as any breach has been rectified.”

An attempt to have that paragraph voted on seperately was easily defeated; removing it would have totally unbalanced what is a particularly balanced motion, condemning unacceptable behaviour by both sides in the dispute.

As I said in my speech, the Western world has for years allowed Israel to get away with murder — literally in the case of targetted assasinations and the collateral damage of innocent men, omen and children —  with barely a whimper of international protest. No wonder so much of the Arab and wider Islamic world sees the Western position as hypocritical. We cannot realistically expect much pressure on Israel from the United States, whatever the outcome of this autumn’s US presidential election, so Europe should take a lead on this. A review the situation regarding Israel, the Association Agreement and the Geneva Convention would be an important first step in the direction of a more even-handed and principled approach to the ongoing Middle East conflict.