Debate contribution: Gaza: Immediate Ceasefire
Debate contribution by Mr Paul Frew on .
- MLA
- Mr Paul Frew
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 7 May 2024
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Private Members' Business
- Heading
- Gaza: Immediate Ceasefire
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4488439
Read the official Assembly record
Text
"You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilisation from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Satan."
That is an extract from a 1916 novel named 'The Power-House'. It illustrates perfectly what war is. We can take peace so much for granted, yet there are people all over the world who are suffering war. Currently, there are 35 armed conflicts in Africa, 21 in Asia and seven in Europe. I suggest that some of us would struggle to name them. There are six armed conflicts in South America and Central America. As has already been mentioned, according to the UN, since 2014, over 150,000 people have been killed in Yemen and an estimated 227,000 people are dead as a result of ongoing famine and lack of healthcare facilities due to that war. That is what war is. Of course, every one of us here should call for the ending of war. Just as 9/11 changed everything for the US and, indeed, the world — remember that we sent troops — 7 October changed everything for the Israeli people. That is a stark comparison that must be made.
I will give way once I have made progress. Israel must have the right to defend itself. How it conducts the war should be tried and tested at the highest levels of court in the world, not, I suggest, by the SDLP through its motion, which is flawed. It grieves me that my party cannot support a motion that calls for the ending of war. Who are the SDLP Members or anybody else in the House to decide what is genocide and what is war? The motion states that 35,000 people are dead: where did they get that figure? I am not disputing it; I am asking where they got it. If it comes from the Ministry of Health, it is from a terrorist organisation called "Hamas", so we have to be careful. The sound bites and coverage that we all see on social media have been mentioned today. A lot of that cannot be attested to, so where do we get our information? We all have to be careful about what we view and what we see, because we live in a new age of technology. I will give way now.
402 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
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: 0.23 (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).
- No identity-based framing was identified (0.56).
- 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
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.22 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.20 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.02 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.38 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.14 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.50 | No |
| Overall judgement | 0.23 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 0.56 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.11 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.01 |
| Adopts it | 0.32 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.44 |
| Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice) | 0.27 |
| Another identity-related subject | 0.14 |
| Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations | 0.10 |
| Immigration, asylum, race, ethnicity and Travellers | 0.02 |
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.
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