Conservative Lords spoke in support of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israel’s right to self defence in the House of Lords this week.
Lord Livingston, in a question to UN and Commonwealth Minister Lord Ahmad, criticised excessive focus on the IDF by detractors of Israel, asking: “Would my noble friend agree that, while the Israel Defense Forces are not perfect, the obsession with focusing on them—despite their being the most moral and professional army in the Middle East—is very strange?”
He underlined: “At the same time, one must also focus on, for example, the Palestinian authorities having more than 30 schools named after terrorists who have murdered Israelis. These issues have to be looked at as well”.
The UN and Commonwealth Minister said in his response: “As we have consistently made clear, Israel has a right to self-defence. We have also repeatedly called for Hamas to stop firing rockets into Israel. Whether a life is lost on the Israeli side or on the Palestinian side, we are equally appalled. We must work towards a resolution of that conflict. It has gone on far too long”.
Lord Ahmad also condemned Hamas’s “despicable” use of children as human shields and the organisation’s failure to recognise Israel in a separate answer to a question by Crossbench peer Baroness Deech, stating: “Hamas failed to recognise the State of Israel, failed to negotiate and failed to recognise the right of Israel to exist”.
Click here to read a full transcript.
