 The final item of business is a member's business debate on motion 11690, in the name of Sandra White, on that bus 70th anniversary. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put with those members who wish to speak in the debate, press their request to speak buttons now. I call on Sandra White to open the debate. Ms White, please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I also thank the many members who signed the motion, giving it cross-party support and enabling this debate to take place. I also want to thank the many groups who have contacted me and other members about the debate. Some of their representatives are here in the gallery tonight. I welcome to the Scottish Parliament. Thank you very much for your support. In the past 40 hours, we have witnessed the killing of over 50 Palestinian people, thousands injured by the Israeli army and members of the international community have condemned the use of live ammunition and tear gas on innocent civilians by the Israeli army. I add my voice to that condemnation and stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people who have been denied the right to return to their land and their homes in Acba. The debate is here to mark the 70th anniversary of the Acba. In doing so, I would like to offer some background. I think that it is the proper thing to do. There is often a great deal of misunderstanding and misrepresentation on Palestine, whether it is from individuals, the media or governments, but certain historical facts cannot be altered or dismissed. After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in 1914, the British occupied Palestine as part of the Sykes-Pilcott Treaty of 1916, between Britain and France to carve up the Middle East for imperial interests. In 1917, before the start of the British mandate in 1920-1947, the British issued the Balfour Declaration, promising to help the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, essentially vowing to give away a country that was not there to give away. In early 1947, the British Government announced that we would be handing Palestine over to United Nations and therefore washing its hands of any responsibility to the Palestinian people. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations adopted resolution 181, recommending the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. That is very important, a special international status for the city of Jerusalem. That is an important point to make, and I hope that Mr Trump and others are listening to that. The proposals were not seen as acceptable, as they went against the principles of the right to self-determination and imposed conditions that were seen as unfair and unworkable. That slide to the 1948 conflict, which saw Israeli forces take control of a much larger area of land that was proposed in the UN resolution, and an estimated 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled with hundreds of Palestinians in towns and villages depopulated and destroyed. That is in Acba, and those who fled are still waiting to return. I would like to highlight the stories of two people who lived through this and many more atrocities. Abu Arab owns a tiny store in the main thoroughfare of the market in Nazareth, Old City. His shop is a time capsule. On display is a rusting bowl, and inside are hundreds of old coins of a currency that is no longer recognised. That currency is a Palestinian lira. Abu Arab cherishes his relics as keenly as he does his memories of a home and a way of life that he lost when he was 13 years of age and lived in the village of Sapuri. Abu Arab recalls events of July 1948 as he was attacked. He said that he bombed us from the air just as we were breaking the fast for Ramadan. He knew we had all been our houses. His parents fled with the children, three brothers, including the famous and late poet Taha Muhammad Ali and a 12-year-old sister. They were forced northwards towards Lebanon. Shortly after their arrival at a refugee camp there, his sister died. His father decided that he must make the dangerous journey back home. At the journey's end, they found that the village was gone. The area had been fenced off and declared a military zone. Anyone entering risk being shot, he says that we had nothing. Everything had been taken from us. Abu Arab helped to find the main body that represented the internal refugees ADRID, the Association for the Rights of the Internal Displaced, which, for the past 30 years, has organised anio naqba march. Oman Omar was only eight when her family was expelled from the home town of Jassar in 1948 and landed in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip. The refugee camp was established by the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees for an estimated 35,000 people who were evicted from their area. Today, however, the camp is the largest in the besieged coastal enclave with more than 110,000 refugees living there. The pain of displacement has never ended for this family. They lived through three Israeli military offences in Gaza since 2009. Like tens of thousands of Palestinians across the narrow coastal enclave, Omar's home was destroyed by Israeli airstrikes during the 51-day offences in Gaza in 2014. Seven years ago, a couple buried their home in keys, and that is also important because those keys mean such a lot to the Palestinian people. They buried in a location where the children know, hoping that they would be able to return to their home one day. As he said, I still hope that I will die in my home town. I may be using a walker to move around today, but if they told me that I could go back, I would run all the way. What a man. It is estimated that there are 7.98 million Palestinian refugees and displaced people who cannot go back to their houses. The Gaza Strip, which is 2 million Palestinians, has been under Israeli siege for more than a decade, whereby Israel controls airspace, sea, borders. The Strip has also witnessed three Israeli assaults that have made the area close to uninhabitable. Many people are quick to criticise nations that violate UN resolutions or do not abide by international law. I think that that is quite right. I believe that if we fail to acknowledge what Israel has been doing in Palestine and where Israel is concerned, we fail to present the situation honestly. We fail to be taken seriously by the rest of the world. I noticed just about 10 minutes ago that the UK Government had issued out a statement calling for greater restraint from Israel. That is an insult to every single Palestinian who has been killed and injured in the past not just 40 hours, but years—an absolute insult, and we must make sure that we have our voices heard. Let us be clear. Regardless of the history, I believe that the only way forward to achieve the lasting peace is to recognise Palestine's state, along with an Israeli one. That was not possible in 1947, but for me and many others, it is the only viable option to go into just now. Let us be clear that the time is now. The time is not tomorrow or next year or at some point in the future. It is now. People are dying every single day. We cannot continue to bury our heads in the sand. It is time for the UK to join other UN member states and recognise the state of Palestine. It is morally incumbent on the UK to take that step, given its involvement and its resulting culpability for the current situation. From the time in Britain and minister of Palestine after the First World War until it was abandoned in 1948, resulting in the Nakba, our involvement in Palestine has been quite shameful. From the promises of an independent Palestinian state to refusing to support UN efforts for a two-state solution leading to the 1948 war and the subsequent loss of Palestinian lands, our actions have loomed large over the history of Palestine. It is time for our actions to loom large over the future of Palestine. I've called Ivan McKee to be followed by Maurice Golden. Mr McKee, please. Doesn't appear to... We thought he'd pressed his button. We've misread it. He has pressed his button. Where's Mr McKee? He's not here. Oh, sorry, I've called you, Mr McKee. Sorry. Oh, dearie. You need to... I was beginning to think I was taking... You're telling me here, Mr McKee. Ivan McKee to be followed by Maurice Golden. I did call him, didn't I? I didn't. Thank you. I've got some allies. Ivan McKee to be followed by Maurice Golden. Thank you. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and thank you very much to Sandra White for bringing this hugely important debate to the chamber this evening. Of course, our thoughts today are with the families of those killed by the Israeli forces over the last few days and the very sad situation, the tragic situation that's developing in Gaza. The NACBA, or the Catastrophe, as it's called by the Palestinians, at Sandra White, is explained, was the events that happened 70 years ago when more than 700,000 Palestinians were evicted, forced from their land and from their homes. More than 500 villages and towns destroyed, and the descendants of those Palestinians still living in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and across the globe. While those events were 70 years ago, they're still very much alive today, as the tragic events of yesterday and over the last few weeks have demonstrated with the Palestinian people making clear their determination to one day return to the homes from which they were expelled. In Gaza is very much a consequence of the NACBA, more than 50 per cent of the population living in Gaza, are refugees from the events of 70 years ago. That ethnic cleansing that happened 70 years ago, let's be clear, still continues every day through to the present. When I visited Palestine, my first trip to Palestine very recently, I witnessed very much at first hand the events that continue to unfold day by day. I was taken to the south Hebron Hills by an organisation called Breaking the Silence, which is an organisation that formed of ex-Israeli veterans from the Israeli army who are making a stand to state that the things that they were asked to do while they were in the army were unacceptable and making it public to the population in Israel and internationally of the unacceptable things that the army, the Israeli army, are expected to carry out in the occupied territories day by day. We visited the village of Susea, where residents on no less than six occasions, over the past 70 years, have had their homes destroyed and have been moved on only to return back and rebuild and try to carry on their lives. That's in what's called Area C of the West Bank, the area that's under Israeli military control. Right next to the Palestinian villages there are, of course, the Israeli settlements and the Israeli army. They are not to police the situation but with the very clear intent of protecting the settlers and doing whatever is required to make life as difficult as possible for the Palestinians that live there. We witnessed Palestinians trying to farm on their land and plant trees there and being thrown off in front of our eyes by the army. The army creates so-called military zones for the specific purpose of preventing Palestinians to farm there, again throwing them off their land, destroying the water system so that the Palestinian villagers can't continue their agricultural business on the land that they own. I met with the medical aid for Palestinians who are here today and they explained the situation on the Israeli checkpoints for 57 Palestinians who died in the last year trying to get to hospital but stopped by the Israeli army from doing so. I met with Bitselam at a very effective and brave Israeli human rights organisation that documents across the occupied territories the human rights abuses that are carried out by the occupied forces. I think that the time that I got available just to wind up, it is clear that the situation is getting worse and that the actions by the Trump administration disgraceful in creating and identifying Jerusalem as a capital of Israel. That is only going to make the situation worse. Now is the time, as Sandra White said, for internationally, from messages from the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Government, the UK Government, the European Union and others internationally that the time has come to end the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and to move towards a just peace in the region. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms McKee. I call Maurice Golden. We follow about Annas Sarwar. Mr Golden, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Let me begin by paying my respects to the many people tragically killed and injured during the protests in Jerusalem. It is important that we remember such events lest they become lost in the cycle of violence that sadly plagues the region. These latest violent clashes serve as a reminder of how volatile the Middle East is. Centuries of anger and conflict have led us to the present, where Israelis and Palestinians share an uneasy coexistence. It is that legacy of conflict and strife that we are here to debate today, but we must also look to the future and the hope for reproachment. I do not have time in such a short speech to recount the entire history of conflict and dispute between Israelis and Palestinians, nor in this particular debate would it be appropriate to do so. However, it is important to recognise that the two peoples share an intertwined history. Recognising just one aspect of that history, whether it be from a pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian viewpoint, does both a disservice. Just as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced from their homes in the 1948 war, so, too, did hundreds of thousands of Jews flee from Arab states to the newly created state of Israel. Both occurred against a backdrop of war that claimed thousands of lives. I will not attempt to draw equivalence between suffering and loss, but I point out that Israelis and Palestinians are two people linked by the same tragic events. If we want to see the cycle of anger and violence broken, we must acknowledge that link, that shared tragedy. In that light, we must recognise that the motion only tells half the story. It refers to the generations of pain felt by the Palestinian people, and so do I, but we should also recognise the generation of fear felt by the Israelis who have also found themselves under attack. The United Kingdom rightly favours a two-state solution. If we are to seriously champion the cause of the Palestinian people to live in their own state of peace and security, we must also champion the right of Israel to exist and be free from attack. Both causes are equally valid. Israel was born amidst war, but it has come through adversity as an established democracy in the Middle East. Of course, Israel is not perfect, nor should we defend every action of the Israeli Government. Israel does show the world, however, that a free and democratic society governed by the rule of law is possible in the Middle East. It is important that we remember the suffering and loss on both sides, but we cannot be bound by the darkness of the past if we want a brighter future for both Israel and Palestine. I call Anas Sarwar to be followed by Ross Greer. I was not intending to speak in the debate, but to listen to the debate because I support everything that Sandra and I am sure that many others will speak about. I want to congratulate Sandra White for bringing forward the motion and the debate, but I have been struck emotionally by what I have seen in recent days that I feel angry, helpless and broken. I know that that is a feeling shared by millions of people in our country here, but tens of millions of people right around the world. The events of the past few days will have lasting consequences. The opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem is a direct and deliberate threat to any chance of peace. It is a deliberate attempt to kill any hope of a peace process and it is a deliberate attempt to kill any chance of a genuine two-state solution. It has been a deliberate act to inflame and escalate tensions, not to de-escalate tensions. The events in Gaza prove that. 50 people have been killed, including women and children. Over 2,000 people have been injured. This is not an isolated case on one day, but an on-going crisis every single day. To put it into stark contrast, can you imagine if the city of Glasgow was surrounded by a wall with limited people allowed in, with limited supplies allowed in, with no one allowed out and we had intermittent firing of rockets and missiles into it? What would be the reaction of fellow Scots? What would be the reaction of the international community? That is what is happening to the people of Gaza every single day. It is the death of humanity that is happening in Gaza and the West Bank, and we have to stand up and speak out about it. The reality is that Donald Trump is not an honest broker for peace. He has broken that chance of peace. Where is the international community, the so-called international community, that we all say that the international community needs to out-send out condemnation? The international community needs to come together. The international community needs to start a peace process. There is no such thing as the international community when we see international horrific incidents happening like this. We talk about the peace process, there is no peace process to revive, there is no peace and there is no process, and every single day that we waste makes the chance of achieving a two-state solution less and less likely. To be frank, shame on us, shame on all of us, shame on every single person right across the international community that allows this tragedy to go on day after day after day. Innocent people deny their basic rights of access to clean water, access to food, access to employment, access to any kind of peace or justice or access to democracy, things that we take for granted every single day. I have been to the Gaza Strip, two-thirds of the population only eat because of UN food programmes. One-third of essential medicines listed by the World Health Organization are not available to the people of Gaza. This is a tragedy in our world on our watch and we should all be collectively ashamed of ourselves. I am sick of condemnation when bad events happen. Condemnation is no longer enough. We need to wake up as a genuine international community and act because if we do not, the legacy that we leave behind is one of shame on the entire global family that we allegedly live in. I call Ross Greer to be followed by Pauline MacNeill. Thank you to my co-convener of this Parliament's cross-party group on Palestine, Sandra White, for ensuring that we are able to mark the NACPA in the Scottish Parliament today. What did we realise when we were discussing preparations for today at the CPG that this debate would prove so tragically timely, though Israel's barbarities have no surprise to anyone with even a passing understanding of how their state came into being or its actions in each and every year since? Many of us had hoped with the world's eyes on them yesterday, even if for nothing more than PR purposes, Israel might show some restraint. In hindsight, it was stupid to expect as much from an Israeli state that has not for years seen Palestinian people as people, which places no value on their lives. Yesterday, Israeli soldiers gunned down more than 60 Palestinians protesting for their right to exist on their land. They injured thousands more. They killed six children and at least one paramedic. In the weeks since the great march of return protests began, they have killed almost 100 demonstrators, including Ibrahim Abu Thiraya, who lost both his legs to previous Israeli airstrikes and was shot dead in his wheelchair. A photojournalist, Yassir Mataji, was shot wearing a protective vest that clearly marked him out as press. After murdering him, the Israeli Government propagand the machine spun into place. It claimed that he was a high-ranking member of Hamas. Before concocting the story, they had not bothered to find out the first thing about him. If they had, they had known that he had previously been arrested and beaten by Hamas. He had cleared American Government vetting to receive grants from an aid agency. He was no threat, he was no extremist, he was a journalist doing his job. They have no hesitation, lying and spreading misinformation in attempts to get away with their crimes. Given that it is our year of young people here in Scotland, I will take this opportunity to show our solidarity with the children and the young people of Palestine, especially those in Gaza, born long after the Nakba and still suffering from its consequences. Fully half of Gaza's population are under the age of 18. Over a decade into its siege, the UN estimates that more than 300,000 of them need psychological support. They are so traumatised by the atrocities that have been inflicted upon them. During the 2014 assault on Gaza, over 500 children were killed by Israel. That included four boys from one family. They were playing football on the beach when they were shelled by the Israeli Navy. Clearly children, clearly not a threat. They were not hit by a single stray shell, they were deliberately attacked. As they fled across the beach, the Israeli ship adjusted its aim and fired a second shell, killing them all. Their names were Ismail Mohammed Baqir, he was nine. Zakaria Ahed Baqir, he was ten. Ahed Ateth Baqir, he was ten. And Mohammed Ramaz Baqir, he was 11. Their deaths were recorded by the world's media. They were 200 metres away in their own hotel. Many of those journalists put themselves at risk and did all they could to save those children and the two others who were wounded with them. And the Israeli Government spokesperson sent out to spin this all away was, of course, Mark Regev, now the Israeli ambassador to the UK. From what I can tell, there really is no war crime to heinous for Mr Regev to struggle spinning it. Israel is the only country in the world to summarily prosecute children through a military court system, and not Israeli children, of course, just Palestinian children. Those who object to Israel being labelled in a apartheid state should look no further than the situation in the West Bank, where two legal systems exist. Maurice Golden mentioned Israel being a country with the rule of law, two rules of law, and the legal system that you are subjected to depends on nothing more than your nationality and your ethnicity. If you are a Palestinian living in that Palestinian territory, you will be subjected to Israeli military court systems that deny your basic fundamental rights. If you are an illegal Israeli settler, you will fall under Israel's civilian legal system. Israel's apartheid system goes far beyond the walls that they build. Just ask the five to seven hundred Palestinian children arrested and prosecuted under that military court system every year. Three in four of them are physically abused by their captors. One in four is forced to sign documents in Hebrew, a language that they do not even speak. Israel is not a beacon of decency in democracy. It is a colonial occupier. It is an apartheid state. It is an abuser of children. We must reject the false equivalence of those who try to obscure Israel's crimes by framing this as a conflict between equal sides. Palestine has no army, no navy, no air force. For much of the day, Gaza does not even have electricity and barely any running water. While Israel relies on massive economic and military aid packages in the US and UK, Palestinians rely on our international solidarity and that of those inside Israel, like breaking the silence that Ivan McKee mentioned, whose work should be admired. That is why the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign is so important. Just as apartheid South Africa became an international pariah, so too must apartheid Israel. We cannot stand by and allow those crimes to go unanswered. We must put pressure on every business, every organisation that supports the occupation until they withdraw. The people of Palestine deserve to be free, and here in Scotland we must do all that we can to help them to achieve that. Can I say just before I call Pauline McNeill, due to the number of members still wishing to speak in the debate, I am minded to accept a motion under rule 8.14.3, that the debate is extended by up to 30 minutes. Can I write Sandra White to move the motion please? The question is that under rule 8.14.3, the debate is extended by up to 30 minutes. Are we agreed? We are agreed. I then call Pauline McNeill to be followed by Ruth Maguire. I would like to begin by thanking Sandra White for securing this debate, to ensure that this day does not go unmarked. I'll not go back. The catastrophe is a crime the world should never forget. It is not just an event, but a point in history that caused the conflict. The Palestinian Israeli conflict. It was a crime against humanity, a crime against the Palestinians, and yes, there are two sides. It should be taught to our children in our schools, and it should be taught as part of the history lessons for that reason. The world has remained largely silent since certainly and had ineffective in challenging Israel the only party in this conflict who can make any real concessions to the Palestinians. The events of 15 May 1948 involved a systematic and violent removal of Palestinians from their homelands, expelled them, colonised their land, annexed their territory. Soiarun, Bent, Jabil, Haifa, Jaffa, Lubia, just some of the names that the Palestinian villages taken by force, and we know that there are more than 500. The refugees that ended up in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, dispersed around the world live in the worst conditions, and I know many of my colleagues have been there to see them for themselves. In Shatila camp in Beirut, which I visited last year, young men and women could only dream of a future because they have no rights in the countries of which they are refugees, and a young woman I spoke to last year who is desperate to be a doctor can't really achieve her dream because she has no rights in Lebanon where she lives in a refugee camp. There can be no settlement without a solution to the rights of refugees to return to their homeland. More than 80 per cent of the Palestinian population lost their homeland and were expropriated without compensation. They are still not a justice. As we have heard from other speakers, Gaza is described as a prison and is now in its 11th year of blockade. It is unlivable. It only has a few hours of electricity every day, and now it has been said that by 2021, Gaza will not be viable. So, if you want to ask questions about why it is that Palestinians are peacefully protesting now on the border between Gaza and Israel, it is because they live in a prison, they live in blockade by landing by sea and which the world does nothing about. In the West Bank, Palestinians live under occupation with no rights and daily suffering. As Ross Greer has said, there is no equal treatment for Palestinians. They do not have citizenship. Any Jewish person anywhere in the world can come even to the West Bank, occupy territory and claim citizenship, but my friends from Jerusalem who do not have citizenship and whose family come from Jerusalem cannot get citizenship. There is no equality. Repeated UN resolutions are being ignored by Israel. No state actor stands up to Israel. Resolution 194, just to name but one, the right of return when it says a person shall not be subject to arrest or detention or exile, but these resolutions are continually ignored. In fact, the Israeli First Israeli Cabinet passed an emergency regulation one day after the adoption of resolution 194 to legalise and the permitting of all Palestinian property of those who were absent, who fled the violence in 1948 to be confiscated. Sadly, that is the character of the state of Israel. The question is not about the right of the state of Israel to exist, but it is about the character of Israel and how it has evolved 70 years later. Nolan Chonski, who I admire, said that many of the world's problems are intractable, but that the Palestinian issue conflict is one of the solveable problems of the world. He was the first person to observe, as Anasawa rightly says, that the peace talks were never meant to reach a destination. They are to perpetuate a situation of no solution, and it is very important to understand this point—a close presiding officer, if you want me to. We went into some dreadful scenes in Gaza in the last few days, 58 Palestinians killed dead, and I'd say to Maurice Golden and others, I appreciate that we don't have the same view, but surely, as a human being, you can see that these are unarmed protesters and that the actions of visual and its army should be condemned outright in the Gaza hospitals. Right now, they do not have enough operating theatres to attend to the injured. I am struck by the number of Israelis, young people of all ages who are appalled by the actions of their own state, a state that they love and believe in, the only way to ensure peace in the Middle East. It is for a third party, not the United States, to be an interlocutor to find an independent Palestinian state alongside a state Israel. However, if no state actor is prepared to challenge Israel's behaviour and how it conducts its business and the fact that it makes no concessions in the peace process to the Palestinians, unfortunately, this conflict will go on for another 70 years and shame on the international community for doing nothing to stand up to Israel. I congratulate my colleague Sandra White on securing this debate and thank her for her long-standing and unwavering commitment in highlighting the injustices suffered by the Palestinian people at the hands of Israel. We are here this evening marking the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, but the Nakba, or the catastrophe, did not really start or end in 1948. The mass eviction of over 750,000 men, women and children from historic Palestinian land, the destruction of over 500 towns and villages, the Palestinian people were being forcibly removed from their land before 15 May and, still today, 70 years later, generations know the pain of displacement, the pain of protracted conflict and the pain of a prolonged, vicious Israeli occupation punctuated by frequent incidents of calculated, cowardly violence, incidents that we all bore witness to again yesterday. This is state-sponsored violence carried out against children as well as adults, and shame on those who describe it as clashes. None of us, not a single one of us, are fooled by the term clashes when describing what has been happening over the last few days. Quite simply, this is a massacre. There is no justification for it, and I fear that the actions of the so-called superpowers and the UK's impotent response simply mean that we have never been further from justice, that we have never been further from peace. I cannot have been the only one sickened by the grotesque pictures of US dignitaries' decadent backslapping celebration of their embassy opening in Jerusalem as snipers fired at unarmed civilians, maiming and killing. It was a massacre. Medical aid for Palestine states that Palestinians living under occupation or blockade in the occupied Palestinian territories or as refugees in Lebanon are subject to intolerable stress in every aspect of their daily lives. Lack of access to health services, settler violence, threat of home demolition, unemployment and trauma caused by conflict and displacement are all facts of daily life. Over 4 million displaced people were registered by the UN as refugees and unable to return home. A constituent of mine has Palestinian family in Jordan. He tells me that the children have asked their grandpa there many times why he didn't stay, and he tells them that they were so worried. They knew what was being done and they fled in all directions. The mass eviction of more than 750,000 men, women and children, the destruction of over 500 towns and villages. He believed that it was only temporary and that they would be home soon. Four generations have passed and they are still exiled. Still there is no justice and still we are far from peace. I almost can't bring myself to imagine how despairing the seeming absence of any prospect of peace, freedom or justice must be. It is absolutely heartbreaking that old are still alive and the young will never forget and we won't forget here in Scotland either. There are many local organisations campaigning for justice for Palestine, such as the Ayrshire Palestine Forum, which this month marched with the trades councils on May to raise awareness and hold regular stalls and events. Find your local group and support them. There are national demonstrations taking place this weekend. Those in the west of Scotland might like to join me on 19 May in Glasgow. If you can't join a group, if you can't join a demo, you can take action as an individual. Boycott, divestment and sanctions are a legitimate peaceful action to take. It has worked before against apartheid and it can work again. Boycott is really good. Encourage divestment in Israeli companies and contact your MPs and the UK Government and urge sanctions against this racist apartheid state. We have to build a wave of support for Palestine that can't be ignored. Finally, I encourage everyone who cares about peace and justice to take action and do all that they can. I call John Finnie to be followed by James Dornan. I congratulate my friend and colleague Sandra White for all her efforts on behalf of the Palestinian people and for bringing this motion here. It's very important that we remember 70 years on and every day has been a day of misery for people there. It's important that we don't forget the role that the UK played in that. We can't rewrite history. Of course, history will show us that a bullying state will remove a group of people from their own homes and land. They will seize those homes and land and put their own people in them. They'll imprison and abuse the original occupants. That's what the Nazis did. That's what happened under Stalin's Soviet Union. That's what's happening on a daily basis in the apartheid state of Israel. That's an appropriate term. The gentleman who compiled that term in a UN report and was hounded around this planet for evidencing the fact that Israel is an apartheid state is an example of the bullying that goes on. I unreservably condemn that in humanity. I'm surprised why a group of people will only be prepared to condemn two of the three categories that I mentioned. I also condemn violence. I think that everyone is right to defend themselves. I do condemn violence. However, underlying causes of that conflict must be recognised and must be looked at. Most of all, in this chamber, I have the opportunity to condemn apologists. Mr Golden told us that he came here to debate. He didn't come to debate. He could have taken the opportunity to engage in debate. What he's done is he's kept his head down and he's read his preprepared speech. I don't know who's written it for him. What, of course, happened with the intake of August 2016 was that, while many of us were looking after our constituents are concerned about issues around the planet, a group of the Conservative intake went to Israel. I'll tell you what their leader, John Lamont, said. I look forward to exploring ways in which we can further these political, cultural and economic ties with the Jewish state. I'll have to tell you that I'm not alone in finding that term offensive. What they did do when they were there was that they took the opportunity to do a bit of sightseeing, and I know that you don't like props, so I'm not going to hold up the picture, but if I tell you, Presiding Officer, that Messers Mundell, Ross, Lamont, MacKinnis, Thomson, Lockhart, Green and along with Ms Wells and Ms Hamilton and Mr Morris Golden are pictured at the Westbank wall, which was erected in 2007. It's a violation of international law with international court of justice, and they're all standing there grinning profusely with the military officer who built the wall. What a tremendous propaganda success for that vial regime, handed to them on a plate. I respect international law, it's evident that the Conservatives don't. I also am prepared to condemn anyone who is involved in vials. There's a lot of concern about state media control that emanates from Russia. The killing of journalists is a factor there. Of course, we know that that's exactly the same in Israel, and people who are prepared to condemn Russia on that basis should be prepared to condemn Israel. As we've heard from many speakers, there's been an intentional targeting of people who have tried to record this. Innocent people with presves being shot. There's many fine people in Israel. In previous speeches, I've mentioned the respected war correspondent, Skiddy and Levy, who was vilified for documenting in his analytical form what he saw in Gaza, just as he had done in the Chechnya and just as he had done in the Balkan conflict. Like others, I visited Gaza in 2012 by my colleague Claudia Beamish. It is a human prison. I find it particularly galling that Conservative party will condemn a Government giving the provision of a baby box to a family, but have nothing to say on babies in Gaza being denied electricity, food, sustenance, shelter and, most of all, a future. I think that it's to your eternal shame. Of course, what we do know about Gaza is that it's a very successful live test ground for the munitions of Israel's very successful arms industry. However, I want to be positive. I do think that justice will prevail. I do think that individuals that deserve and clearly the Conservative benches find that amusing. I don't think that there's anything amusing about justice prevail. It does catch up and folk it caught up on the Nazis and it will catch up on this present regime. The people will be taken to trial and they'll get their opportunity to say they're going to be defended. People have talked about the keys and I think that there is a very wonderful symbol. I think that the keys will yet be used to gain access to houses. However, I say again that history will judge very harshly those who have colluded, promoted, appeased and denied. The online bullying that participants in this debate will have at the conclusion of this debate, because that's the way things work, people come out the woodwork or very nice, mild mannered wee women want to come and see you in Harassia, because that's the way that it works. That's how it works when Nazi Germany, that's how it works with Stalin, that's how it works with Polport, that's how it works with this regime. Let's not forget, it's important, there are many things that could be said, I'm sure you'll tell me to be quiet. What I want and what is required is the fulfilment of international law in something approaching humanitarian norms. I hope that I am allowing members to generosity with their time in the debate, whoever is speaking. I call James Dornan to be followed by Claudia Beamish, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I start off by congratulating Sandra White and bringing this to the chamber today. As was said by Ross Greer earlier on, the timing could not have been more horrifically apt than it turned out today. There's lots that's been said about the nightmare, and I don't think I want to go over that, except for to say that if that happened today, we wouldn't be calling it a catastrophe, we'd be calling it ethnic cleansing, because that's exactly what they did, the ethnically cleansed. I have not been to Palestine yet, we were hoping to arrange a trip once and I had to get cancelled late on, but I have been to areas that I've gone through, similar things like I've been to Uganda and South Sudan. I've been to Serbia where I've met Syrian refugees, so obviously there's two connections there with the Bosnian conflict. I'm going to Srebrenica very shortly. You wonder to yourself how do you get to such a place, and you can't do it if you see the other person as the same as you. What we are seeing in Israel is what has happened in some of those conflicts across the world. The Israeli Government do not perceive that the Palestinian people have been equal to the Israeli people. If they did, they couldn't possibly treat them in the way that they treat them just now. I mean, I watched some of those scenes, it would just break your heart. There was a baby died today from tear gas. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly confident that that child was not trying to climb over the wall or go through the wires. Just like that guy in the wheelchair that Ross was talking about earlier on, those are not people who are trying to invade Israel. Those are not people who are putting others at risk. Those are innocent people who are being murdered, slaughtered, massacred by the Israeli state. I do not think that it's incumbent of anybody from this Parliament to come here and admit, to be fair to Maurice Golden, shame-facedly to get up and defend the Israeli state, because it should not be defended. Maurice Golden was talking about two sides to this and there are some terrible things that have happened to the people of Israel. In the past year, you could count on the one hand the amount of people who have died through the conflict. Probably while we have been having a speech, you could say that the same amount of people will probably have been killed at the conflict just now. There has got to be an equivalence, there has got to be moral equivalence and there has got to be legal equivalence. The Tories are meant to be the party of the rule of law, but it seems that when it comes to Israel, just like with Trump and the other major forces in the world, they turn a blind eye to it. We need to make sure—we have talked very powerful speeches from Anas Sarwar and many others today—we need to make sure that the international community, if it is going to mean anything at all, stands up to the bully boys of Israel, tells Trump to get out his box, go back and build another hotel and leave the world to grow in peace, because what he did yesterday was quite shameful and, as has been said earlier, was deliberate. Do you know that yesterday the Israeli Government asked the mosque near the new American embassy if they could tone down the call to prayer during the celebrations? Seriously, that is how insignificant they see the Palestinians, the Muslim population of Israel. Please think about this. The Conservatives, everybody in this place should be thinking about how we can move forward together to make this life better for everybody, and not the way it is just now, where there are some here who count and there is a big swathe of people who do not count, and that is not the way that we should be thinking about this Parliament or the world should be in general. Let's get behind the people of Palestine, let's get that two-state solution sorted and let's do it as soon as we possibly can. I declare an interest as a co-convener of the cross-party group for Palestine, along with Sandra White and Ross Greer, and I want to start with a very heavy heart by thanking Sandra White for her motion and the opportunity to debate today on the 70th anniversary of the Nakba. A heavy heart because this motion recognises a day of mourning which should not be happening. It is also a shameful day for the Israeli state whose actions over all this time have caused untold suffering and there is much that breaks with the tenets of international law in that as well. It is also a day of disbelief for me and so many others across the world, disbelief that United States president has shown such total disrespect for a whole displace persecuted and imprisoned people—yes, imprisoned in what should be their own land—by moving the American Embassy from the capital Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which is a holy city for Christians, Muslims and Jews alike and thus totally inappropriate as a capital city for anybody. As reported in the New York Times of 7 December last year, I quote, all but two of 11 former US ambassadors to Israel contacted by the newspaper after President Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital thought that the plan was wrong-headed, dangerous or deeply flawed. Today is also a day to recognise that many Jewish people in Israel and across the world support a just solution for Palestinians. This is symbolised for me by the handing out of flowers to Arab and Palestinian residents by some 200 activists in the old city of Jerusalem, ahead of the flag march, as it is known now. A mass rally of thousands of Jewish nationalists that has been criticised and indeed, in my view, is provocative. However, this is also further a day of deplorable deja vu for me and for so many others. I grew up knowing Palestinian exiles when I lived in London as a child and I visited Lebanon with my father when I was age 15. He was then a politician and saw the refugee camps alongside me. That was 40 years ago and now, today, the naqba or mourning recognises 70 years since the start of this shameful story. As many in this chamber and beyond will know, there are 5 million Palestinian exiles forced out of their lands into camps and other countries across our planet. We have heard about Gaza City as well. John Finnie and I and many others here visited Gaza City over the years. I have signed his recent motion about Israel being an apartheid state having visited the occupied territories in 2012. We witnessed schools and homes bombed in totally disproportionate attacks by the Israeli state, shortages of medical supplies in hospitals. We saw desperate shortages there and dependence on the UN food aid and bottled water due to the Israeli blockade of Gaza. My debate in this chamber, when my friend and colleague John Finnie came back, was named thirsting for justice and there is still no justice. Now, as reflected in Sandra White's earlier motion about land day, 17 unarmed Palestinian protesters were killed by Israeli forces as they tried to show their frustration and, yes, fury at the illegal occupation of their intergenerational homeland. More, of course, have been injured since that day. We come to yesterday. At least 58 Palestinian protesters dead and over 2,000 injured. Anas Sarwar's motion of today notes the UN High Commission for Human Rights, who stated that those responsible for outrageous human rights violations must be held to account. I thank Ivan McKee, because today medical aid for Palestine was at the drop-in here in the Scottish Parliament. I ask all here today and beyond this chamber to consider supporting this charity that does such robust medical work against deplorable conditions on women's health and on a whole range of medical issues trying to save lives as well today from those who were injured yesterday. There is for sure a 2018 sense of international community, but where is the global responsibility that really must help to find a solution for what has been a 70-year-old injustice? Scotland and Britain must play their part. I ask the Scottish Government to consider protesting about the present deplorable disproportionate actions of the Israeli state and to demand in the strongest terms that Israel recommences the negotiations with the Palestinians to create a Palestinian state and a fair and secure solution for all those concerned wherever they may be. I understand that my colleague and friend Pauline McNeill has just highlighted to me that the UN Security Council is currently holding an emergency meeting to discuss the Gaza protests. The indomitable Palestinian people will not give up the keys. This must not pass to another generation. It is time for them to go home and the international community and everyone in this chamber and throughout Scotland and Britain must help to make sure that we play our part to make this happen. I now call on daughter Alasdair Allan to close the Government Minister. I welcome the debate to recognise the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, known as we have heard by the Palestinian people as the day of catastrophe. I thank all the members who have taken part in the debate, particularly as others have done, to thank Sandra White for raising the motion in Parliament tonight. It is as well to remember the horrors that we commemorate. In 1948 there were 750,000 evictions and 4 million refugees and we can hardly ignore the horrors of this week either, a point that many members have made eloquently. Yes, Mr Golden, there has of course been violence on both sides in the past, in the history of this conflict, but this week we have seen an escalation of violence by the Israeli Government and the highest death rates that we have seen in the region since 2014. Following the recent protests along the Gaza border, there has been appalling state-sponsored violence, leading to large-scale loss of life and thousands of injured, including as we have heard children. The Scottish Government, as I think this Parliament does, urges for every effort to be made to prevent further escalation, and in particular all possible steps must be taken to protect children along this border. To anyone who wishes to be more equivocal about that, we either specifically condemn the killing of children or we don't, and I hope that that is a message that leaves this Parliament today. I echo the words of the First Minister yesterday condemning the appalling violence and urging international law to be upheld and human rights to be respected. I would also like to reiterate the words of the Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Tourism and External Affairs Fiona Hyslop, who last night condemned the Israeli Government's absolutely excessive use of force against civilians. The use of force on this scale against civilians has to be unjustifiable. I add my own condemnation of the Israeli Government's actions to the condemnation that has been heard from around this chamber and around the world. The cabinet secretary is writing to the UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to express the Scottish Government's shock over the loss of life, her own dismay over the disproportionate response of the Israeli Government, and to ask the UK Government to do all that it can to urge an immediate solution to the violence and also to play a full role in re-establishing a meaningful peace process. The cabinet secretary will, to pick up on a point that has been made by a number of speakers tonight, also be seeking confirmation from the UK Government that it certainly does not intend to move its embassy to Jerusalem. Yesterday alone, 58 Palestinians were killed and thousands more were injured. Protesters streamed to the frontier for the climax of a six-week demonstration, and that coincided with the US preparing, as we have heard, to open its embassy in Jerusalem. The decision that the US president took on Jerusalem was, by any reasonable assessment, reckless, wrong and a direct threat to the peace process in the Middle East. That is why the decision was rightly condemned across the international community. To bring us back to where Sandra White began this debate, I want to say that the status of Jerusalem can only be determined in a negotiated settlement between Israelis and Palestinians, and, ultimately, Jerusalem should be the shared capital of the Israeli and Palestinian states. That is an important principle and starting point in any quest for peace. In conclusion, the Scottish Government strongly encourages the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority to work with the international community on securing long-term peace and ending the heartbreaking cycle of violence that continues to affect both Palestinians and Israelis. However, above all, we must, as a Parliament, take this opportunity to call directly on the Israeli Government to stop the wildly excessive and totally unjustifiable use of force against civilians. We condemn the reckless decision to open the US embassy in Jerusalem at the very height of tensions on the Israel-Gaza border. The region needs a considered, balanced, strategic approach to building trust and peace. The opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem has only served to increase distrust and make a long-term peaceful solution less likely. The Scottish Government, like many others, supports the EU position of a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders and firmly encourages both Israel and Palestine to reach a sustainable negotiated settlement under international law, which has as its foundation mutual recognition and determination to co-exist peacefully. As we mark NACPA with the distressing scenes that we witnessed this week, it is worth reflecting that peace can only come when human rights are respected, international law is upheld and all parties join in a genuine peace process that puts the rights of all at its heart. That very basic respect for human rights is not what happened to the people of Palestine in 1948 and, be in no doubt, it is not what is happening to them this week. Thank you. That concludes the debate and I close this meeting.