Debate contribution: Gaza: Immediate Ceasefire

Debate contribution by Mr Doug Beattie MC on 7 May 2024.

MLA: Mr Doug Beattie MC
Party at the time: Ulster Unionist Party
Date: 7 May 2024
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Private Members' Business
Heading: Gaza: Immediate Ceasefire
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 4488400

Text

"Only the dead have seen the end of war" is what they say. War is not a video game, although, when you listen to some people, you know that, to them, it is nothing more than "Kill TV". In reality, when you are dead, you do not get a second life: you are dead. When you are maimed, you are maimed for life. When you are psychologically damaged, it will take years to rectify the issues. In some cases, they will never be rectified. War is an absolute abomination; it really is. One thing is absolutely true about war: the people who suffer are, time and time again, the innocent civilians, be they Israeli or Palestinian. The Gaza conflict is devastating, but so is the conflict in Sudan, with 15,000 dead and two million internally displaced, and so is the conflict in Yemen, with over 350,000 dead, including 85,000 children starved to death and four million people displaced, and not a peep out of anybody. There are conflicts in Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Chad, Congo and Ukraine: nothing. As I will tell you in a minute, Ukraine has a lot to do with what we see in the Middle East. I will make three points — they are not necessarily related — in the hope that they will provide a bit of balance. First, I have concerns about the motion. It seems to gloss over Hamas, which is a terrorist organisation; Hamas, which throws men off the top of buildings because they are gay; Hamas, which uses rape as a weapon of war; Hamas, which kidnaps and abuses children; Hamas, which strips out water infrastructure to create missiles to fire at Israeli cities; Hamas, which has a stated aim of the total destruction of Israel. That is not innocent Palestinians' fault. My second point concerns the assault in Rafah. That will be devastating for the innocent Palestinians who live there. You simply cannot put a 120-millimetre, high-explosive shell from a Merkava main battle tank through a kitchen window to kill a terrorist without affecting the family in there. You simply cannot drop a tower block with a 500-lb joint direct attack munition (JDAM) and call it "proportionality". A full-blown engagement in Rafah will be devastating. Israel has a right to defend itself, but it must do so within the laws of armed conflict: necessity, proportionality, distinction and humanity. It is absolutely clear, without a doubt, that Israel has, at times, gone beyond those laws of armed conflict. My last point is about arms sales. The UK's arms sales to Israel are limited. They are very small; in fact, the vast majority of them are navigation systems for some of Israel's aircraft and radar systems. Those radar systems are needed to defend against the rockets that come in, and we now say that we want to take them away. Whether we like it or not, Israel is surrounded by hostile nations. We have all ignored Iran's malign influence in the region through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, Hezbollah in the Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and the Houthis in the Yemen, all of which are linked to the Russian Federation via organisations such as the Wagner Group. It is the same in Syria and in Iraq. It is really difficult to stand here and say that there should be an arms embargo, but maybe the question about arms sales is an ethical one. That is a different question, and we have to look at it in the round, but it is difficult to isolate one country when it is surrounded in such a way. I know how the debate will end up. It will be a case of, "You didn't support the motion, so you don't support peace". That is how it will end up, so let me summarise and make it clear that we support an immediate ceasefire. We support the immediate release of all hostages. We support an increase in humanitarian aid. We support an international response, with an Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)-type organisation drawn from the regional countries.
We support a two-state solution, as per the Oslo agreement. We support de-escalation in the area. However, we cannot support the motion, which is naive at best and misses so many points.

713 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.

Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.13 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.76).
The text adopts the identity-based framing in its own voice (0.42).
Subject area: Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice).
The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.

This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.

Jev’s structured answers

Probability that each statement is true of this text (0 = no, 1 = yes). A criterion counts as met at 0.60 or above.
Question	Probability	Met?
Identity framing	0.15	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.14	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.02	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.18	No
Controversy escalation	0.11	No
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.76	Yes
Overall judgement	0.13	At or below not-flagging threshold

Context and attribution (stance)
Option	Probability
No identity-based framing	0.39
Reports or questions it	0.01
Criticises or condemns it	0.18
Adopts it (chosen)	0.42

Subject area (top five)
Subject	Probability
Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice)	0.49
Another identity-related subject	0.14
No identity-related subject	0.11
Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues	0.10
Immigration, asylum, race, ethnicity and Travellers	0.06

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:22 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification