The calls that we've been seeing over the

course of today for a ceasefire unfortunately seem

to fall unilaterally on Israel and deprive Hamas

of agency and of responsibility.

What we're seeing in terms of the debate in

parliament also is requiring Israel essentially to cease its

self defense and its efforts to return the hostages.

134 hostages remain in Hamas captivity, with reports

of torture, rape and other forms of violence

being metered out against them, as well as

starvation and the deprivation of medical attention.

And Israel has been clear in its aims from the

start of this war that it intends to destroy Hamas

and its capability to ever conduct anything like the 7

October again and to return the hostages.

What's interesting is that for the most

part, the international community was signed on

to those aims until now.

And this about face is inexplicable because the

ability to complete those aims, return the hostages

and destroy Hamas, would never have been possible

without the final Hamas stronghold in Rafa being

subject to this military operation.

And so this is a big change in policy, and

the reasons for it have certainly not been coherent.

How fair is it to say that there is a

double standard when it comes to Israel, whenever it's military

response to a terror attack like the massacres of October

7, that isn't applied to any other army?

What we've seen is unfortunately far worse than a double

standard we have seen in the course of this debate.

Blood libels and complete falsehoods being

leveled against Israel and in particular

its military operation in Gaza.

Untruths being told not only about the way

that Israel is prosecuting this operation against Hamas,

but also about the application of international law

and international humanitarian law, specifically allegations

of war crimes which have absolutely no basis in the

reality and the facts or the law.

The fact of the matter is that those military

and legal experts with an insight into Israel's past

military operations in Gaza, as well as an understanding

of Israel's operations, now have been consistently clear that,

in fact, Israel goes well above the requirements of

international law in the precautions that it takes against

civilian collateral damage and in targeting its strikes and

providing warnings of those strikes, so much so that

it's been called the most moral army in the

history of warfare.

Now, that is completely at ods, with what

we have heard, with unfounded and untrue allegations

of Israel targeting palestinian civilians, and repeated

references to casualty figures that are put out by

the Hamas terrorist group through its control of

the health authorities in Gaza.

Now, the casualty figures that have been relied

upon in the course of this debate are

missing some important pieces of information.

The first is any form of independent

investigation, because the Hamas figures themselves cannot

be taken as a given.

We have multiple examples of

clear inflation and fabrication.

The second aspect of the problems with

these figures is that they make no

distinction between civilians and combatants.

And indeed, we've seen many parliamentarians referring to

them in the course of this debate as

though they were all civilian casualties.

Now, Israel has been clear that the number of

terrorists it knows to have eliminated is approaching 12,000.

What we simply don't know is how many

in total are members of Hamas or palestinian

islamic jihad, or even perhaps ordinary civilians taking

part in hostilities, in taking up arms, and

therefore becoming legitimate military targets themselves.

That we certainly don't know.

The other aspect of this information, which is not

something that Hamas is putting out, is how these

people it claims have died, became deceased.

Because we do know that Hamas are targeting their

own civilians in Gaza, that they have been shooting

them, that they have been bombing fleeing civilians, convoys

following the path of the humanitarian corridors that Israel

has sought to protect and defend.

That is Hamas direct fire.

Only in the last couple of days, the protests

that we have seen erupting against Hamas in the

Gaza Strip by ordinary palestinian civilians, those have also

been targeted by direct live fire.

And the other manner in which Hamas has

been killing its own civilians is with rockets

fired by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad that

frequently fall short in the Gaza Strip.

And we've seen examples of this famously in the context of

the al Akli hospital car park on the 17 October.

But there are very many rockets that are targeting

israeli civilians that, in fact, fall short in the

Gaza Strip that have also been killing civilians.

All of this, of course, all of this important

context and the responsibility of Hamas was wholly absent

from the debate for the most part.

And the vast majority of parliamentarians had

simply attributed all of the deaths to

Israel's actions of self defense.

And that is not correct on the basis of

what we know about the facts on the ground.

It stems from repeated blood libels, allegations of

ethnic cleansing, now even of genocide, which are

an inversion of reality when we consider that

the real genocide was perpetrated by Hamas, acts

of genocide against Jews on the 7 October.

And that when we also consider, of course, that

Hamas has threatened to do this again and again,

and we've seen an inversion of reality and continual

unfounded blame being put on Israel, that has been

the cornerstone of so very many of the speeches

calling for the ceasefire in this debate.

An immediate ceasefire would, of course, leave

the 134 hostages in Hamas captivity.

And it's clear from the hostages that Israel was

able to release through its negotiations, that it was

only military pressure on Hamas that facilitated that humanitarian

pause, which was then very quickly violated by Hamas

when it suddenly refused to return the remaining female

hostages and then began to fire upon Israel.

So when we think about how the previous exchange

was facilitated, how the previous extraction return of hostages

was facilitated, and we think about the prospects of

the future release of hostages, what this debate and

what calls for this ceasefire are doing are encouraging

Hamas to keep going and encouraging Hamas to continue

its attack on Israel, and to refrain from realistic

negotiations and the return of the hostages. They also.

These calls for a ceasefire do an enormous wrong

to the palestinian people, because they suggest, these parliamentarians

that have been issuing this call, that Hamas should

remain, and Hamas should remain in a position not

only where it continues to threaten Israel and repeats

its desire to commit the atrocities of the 7

October over and over again, but where it continues

to oppress, torture and abuse and neglect its own

civilians in the Gaza Strip.

And the Palestinians in Gaza deserve better than that.

They deserve the support of the international community

to rid them and Israel of Hamas once and for all.

We've seen the result of previous ceasefires,

essentially imposed by pressure from the international

community all the way from 2008 through,

of course, in 2014, in 2021.

On each of these occasions, Hamas has used the

opportunity to expand its terror network and infrastructure

and rearm in order to continue to pose what it

hopes is an existential threat to Israel.

It has been clear about its intentions here.

And what the international community and members of parliament

in the United Kingdom really need to understand is

that by continuing to support Hamas in its efforts

to avoid its destruction, they are simply taking us

back to a situation where this cycle will continue

over and over again.

The only hope for the peace that they profess

is to ensure that Hamas is eradicated, to ensure

that it can no longer govern the Gaza Strip.

And in keeping with that, we've heard references

to a Marshall plan for Gaza in the

course of the debate in parliament.

It's important to note, of course, that

the Marshall plan was set in motion

in parallel with a program of denazification.

And when we consider the real cause of not

just the atrocities of the 7 October, but all

of the terrorism that israeli civilians have suffered under

for decades, this has been the result of programs

of indoctrination which have been funded by international

taxpayers and supported by United nations organizations.

3000 terrorists crossed the border on the 7 October,

and according to UN statistics, about three quarters of

them would have been educated in UN run schools

under the UNRA system and the Palestinian Authority curriculum.

And it is through this indoctrination from kindergarten

onwards, that we have seen an unrelenting support

for the programme that Hamas has put forward

for slaughter of Jews and for the attempted

annihilation and continued acts of genocide against jews.

The fact that this has been absent from the

discussion, and that instead this tick box scenario of

calling for a ceasefire that would leave this indoctrination

and this terror and this oppression of the palestinian

people themselves in place, is extremely revealing.

It shows that what we have seen on display

is a great deal of ignorance and arrogance.

And I've also seen certain discussions talking about it

in the context of a colonialist imperialist attitude.

The notion that the palace of Westminster would be able

to educate those in the region as to what the

real issues are and the proper and appropriate paths to

peace, that certainly isn't going down very well amongst those

that truly understand what Hamas is about and what Iran's

terror proxies are seeking to achieve.

When I say that they are playing into the

hands of the terrorist organization Hamas, the international clamor

that is now seeking to prevent Israel from pursuing

its lawful rights of self defense and conducting this

military operation in accordance with international law, calls that

are seeking to put pressure on Israel to desist

serving the interests of Hamas because they are enabling

the Hamas leadership to seek to survive to fight

another day.

And that is surely the major fashion in which

the conflict, and in particular the suffering of the

people in the Gaza Strip, will be perpetuated.

And what's your message to UK politicians?

Ultimately, it has to be this, that

this is not simply Israel's fight alone.

Hamas, Hizbalah, as proxies of ISIS, see Israel as the

first enemy on a very long battle against the west.

The West is next is a phrase that

has certainly garnered currency in recent weeks.

It may sound trite, but it is extremely

important to understand that the approach and the

aims of these islamist fundamentalist terrorists are contrary

to all values of freedom and democracy and

western liberal democratic values.

And that has been the key element of

the oppression also of the palestinian people and

the inability of proper, representative liberal government to

flourish in the territories that are controlled both

by Hamas but also by the Palestinian Authority.