Debate contribution: Gaza: Action to End Forced Starvation

Debate contribution by Mr Doug Beattie MC on 9 September 2025.

MLA

Mr Doug Beattie MC

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

9 September 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Gaza: Action to End Forced Starvation

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5086447

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. My contribution will be quite short, because we have debated the issue long and hard, and all political parties have laid out their stall on it. It may make people feel a little more comfortable if they are able to talk about the matter, but, in reality, it does absolutely nothing for the people in the region, who continue to suffer. I have to correct something, however: the flotilla was not bombed. Somebody fired a ship's flare that went off on the deck, but that does not matter; it is no issue. I will reiterate the Ulster Unionist Party's position on what is happening in Gaza: we affirm that all life, be that Palestinian or Israeli, is of equal value and must be protected under international law. The party rejects any form of collective punishment. There should be an immediate ceasefire and a return to the negotiations. Humanitarian aid should be allowed into Gaza unrestricted, and the United Nations should take over control of that operation. There should be an immediate release without preconditions of all the hostages, even those who are already dead. Their families want their bodies back. The UN should establish a conflict-monitoring force such as we have here in Europe in the form of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). We support the Oslo agreement and want to see a two-state solution. That is where we have always been. That has not changed. I am just reiterating that position. Let me be clear, however: starvation should never be used as a weapon of war. Rape should never be used as a weapon of war. Torture should never be used as a weapon of war. Hostage-taking, terrorism and indiscriminate targeting of civilians should not be used as weapons of war. A lot of what I have just said is in the Sinn Féin motion. I have said nothing that is really outside of it, but Sinn Féin forgets to mention Hamas and what it has to do with the conflict. In our amendment, we have tried to add a bit of balance yet again — nothing more. This might surprise everybody, but, regardless of whether you are a terrorist organisation with a political party heading you up or you are a standing military, you are bound by humanitarian laws in conflict: necessity, humanity, proportionality and distinction. Hamas, the Israelis and the Palestinian West Bank state are all bound and governed by those laws. Have the Israeli Government breached those principles? Yes, they have. Has Hamas breached them? Yes, it has. Yet, nowhere in the motion or in any of the motions that we have had on Gaza has there been criticism of Hamas. Hamas is a terrorist organisation that is linked to Hezbollah and the Houthis and controlled by the Iranian terror network and an Iranian Government who stood in China with the Chinese, Russian and North Korean heads of state. Hamas applauded, just yesterday, the murder of six Israelis — applauded it. It initiated the present round of conflicts with the appalling actions of 7 October 2023 and said that it would do it again and again. The human rights abuses of its own people, including minority groups, go unchecked, and it indoctrinates children into violence, fails to protect women and girls from gender-based violence, supports the marriage of girls under the age of 15 and supports violence within the family. Hamas is also stealing humanitarian aid and selling it on the black market. Sometimes, when we have such debates, we find ourselves thinking that Hamas has nothing whatever to do with what has happened in the region, but it absolutely does. We need to have balance. That is not an excuse, one way or the other, but it is a balance. I hear an awful lot of rhetoric, which is anti-British in many ways, that tries to make out that the UK is arming the Israelis. The truth is that the United Kingdom is not. It gives very little, and what it gives is mostly for the F-35 global project. Do you know who arms the Israelis? The United States. Guess how it does it: through Shannon Airport. Thousands of tons of equipment and thousands of military personnel go through Shannon Airport on the way to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). That is where they go. I hear not a single chirp about that, and we should hear about it. If people really want to have an impact from here in the West on what is happening there, do you know what they need to do? Get themselves down to Shannon Airport, stick a placard up and stand there, because that is where they will get an impact. A fact that I know to be true is that, when conflicts start, innocent people pay the price — innocent Palestinian men, women and children and innocent Israeli men, women and children. That will not end until the conflict and its causes end. That requires negotiation and a two-state solution, as laid out in the Oslo agreement. It is pretty easy to support the Sinn Féin motion. It is uncontroversial. I will support it. All the right ingredients are in there, so I can support it, and I will get pats on the back when we go out of here. It is harder, however, to put balance into something and to turn around and say, "No, Hamas: you are a terrorist organisation, and what you did on 7 October" — what Hamas did then did not start the wider conflict, and I am not saying that it did, but it did start the present round of conflict — "was wrong. The rape, torture and murder was wrong". It is harder to go for balance, but that is all our amendment does: it provides balance. I ask Members to look at our amendment. It has all the ingredients that are in the motion, and the only difference is that we ask people to understand that Hamas is not an innocent bystander to what is happening in the Middle East.

1,022 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:02 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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