Ann McKechin MP

Labour Member of Parliament for Glasgow North

Debate on crisis in the Middle East - 20 July 2006

I shall restrict my remarks to the humanitarian consequences of the conflict. As many speakers have mentioned today, more than a third of the victims are children. They are the voiceless ones in this tragedy, and I hope that we will all remember them in our considerations.

I totally condemn the actions of Hezbollah, but all sovereign Governments have a duty to minimise the risk to civilians and the damage to civilian infrastructure. The United Nations human rights spokesperson, and its humanitarian co-ordinator, Jan Egeland, have both referred to the tragedy that will soon emerge as a result of people being trapped in their homes and cities, which they are not allowed to leave. Their water and electricity supplies are being cut off, and they face an utterly horrific humanitarian disaster.

The international community needs to re-examine its role in this dispute. We were scheduled to discuss the Department for International Development White Paper today, some of which is relevant to our debate. It reminds us that all 191 United Nations member states “endorsed for the first time the groundbreaking principle of a ‘responsibility to protect’. They agreed that while individual governments are responsible for the protection of their own people, the international community would no longer tolerate inaction by national governments in the face of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity within their borders.” If we truly want to live up to those principles, we have a duty to make it clear and transparent when any party to this dispute has acted disproportionately, and to call for an immediate ceasefire. There have been reports of a week’s delay until someone does something, but that is not the way to live up to our responsibilities. More than ever, we need to be seen to be an objective party in relation to the dispute. We need to make the civilian populations our first priority. More than ever, we need to show our real support for the moderate voices on all sides of the dispute, whether they are in Israel, Lebanon or the Palestinian community.


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