Member's statement: Israel: Visit
Member's statement by Mr Paul Givan on .
- MLA
- Mr Paul Givan
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 3 November 2025
- Type
- Member's statement (made as a minister)
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Israel: Visit
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5212848
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I associate myself with the remarks made by Dr Aiken and make a similar declaration of interest. Last week, I had the privilege of visiting Israel and hearing the stories of human tragedy in that community. Today, I put on record some of the voices that I heard. Just as others seek to silence them and cancel them, I will make sure that their voices are heard. The visit started at Yad Vashem, the national Holocaust memorial for the six million Jews slaughtered during the Second World War and remembered at that centre in Israel, the only place and home where Jews can survive after centuries of persecution. I visited Malkia, a kibbutz in northern Israel that Hezbollah repeatedly targeted, year after year after year. I listened to Boaz, who recounted the horrors of many of the atrocities inflicted on his community. What was his message? "I just want peace, and I want the people of Lebanon to prosper". I visited Madjal Shams and the Druze community, an Arab sect of the Shiite variety, where 12 innocent children were killed by a rocket fired by Hezbollah. I visited Nir Oz, and Rita showed us around the site of one of the most appalling atrocities that took place on 7 October: 117 people from that very small village were either murdered or taken hostage, including an 84-year-old man, who was killed in captivity. I went to the Nova music festival site, where 378 young people were gunned down and 44 taken hostage. I listened to Yair recount how he managed to escape, but the trauma lives on. Those are just some of the voices, and that human story needs to be heard about what is happening in Israel. That is why the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland and I are appalled by the manufactured outrage of the extreme left, led by Gerry Carroll, who, on 7 October, tweeted, "Victory to the Palestinian Resistance". He never once apologised, and, yet, he is now supported by the Alliance Party, the SDLP and Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin does not surprise me: terrorists supporting terrorists will never come as a surprise to me. However, I will continue to raise my voice for the innocents who were slaughtered in Israel on 7 October.
379 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice)
Flagged on a second assessment, because Jev’s answers did not settle it. The reasons are given below.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.67 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- Criteria met: Identity framing (0.87).
- The text adopts the identity-based framing in its own voice (0.71).
- Subject area: Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice).
- The answers did not meet either automatic threshold.
What a flag means. A flag means the activity contains at least one instance of culture-war framing that met the published test. It does not mean the whole activity is divisive, or that its substantive arguments are wrong.
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.
Second assessment
Jev’s answers did not settle this record, so a second model, claude-opus-5-5, read the same text (without the MLA’s name or party) and gave its reasons on 21 October 2026. How the second assessment works
- Verdict
- Flagged
- Public interest or divisiveness
- Mixed
Against the published rubric
Most of the statement recounts testimony from victims of Hezbollah attacks and the 7 October atrocities, which on its own is a legitimate position on a foreign conflict. The closing section maps that conflict onto Northern Ireland politics. It sets 'the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland' against the 'manufactured outrage of the extreme left' and lists several local parties as supporting a named member. It then calls one party 'terrorists supporting terrorists', a familiar trope tying a nationalist party to terrorism, which the rubric counts as an identity-based attack on a party and as a dog whistle.
Public interest or divisiveness
Recording victims' stories and condemning atrocities has genuine value, and much of the text does that. But the statement uses those stories to score points against local opponents and to brand a party as terrorists. That deepens communal division at home rather than adding anything of substance on the conflict. Both elements are substantial, but the ending turns a remembrance into a partisan attack.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.87 | Yes |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.30 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.10 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.51 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.43 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.07 | No |
| Overall judgement | 0.67 | Between thresholds |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing | 0.09 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.20 |
| Adopts it (chosen) | 0.71 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice) | 0.94 |
| Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations | 0.06 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.00 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:46 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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