Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Grande discorso di Nick Boles alla Camera dei Comuni

Sulla questione di Gaza.
Suggerisco di prendere attenta nota delle parole di questo valido e
lucido rappresentante del popolo albionico, a proposito del grande
equilibrio con cui Israele gestisce i suoi conflitti, alla grande
attenzione che riserva ai diritti delle minoranze "ostili", persino al
confronto con quanto fece la antica culla della democrazia che tutti
quanti, nondimeno, nonostante i suoi errori ed eccessi passati e
presenti, ammiriamo.
Tb (bieco illuminista)
----
Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con):  Thank you, Mr Deputy
Speaker. May I, too, welcome you to the Chair? You look very fine in
it.
14 Jun 2010 : Column 676
I welcome my hon. Friend the Minister to his post, which I know he
will undertake as well as he has undertaken every other post in which
I have worked with him in the past. I congratulate my neighbour, my
hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen
Phillips), on his excellent maiden speech. The whole House knows that
the finest things come in small packages.
In this first debate of the new Parliament on the middle east, and the
first debate in which I have had a chance to take part, I did not want
to get lost in the thicket of the detail of the current negotiation
and the rights and wrongs of every issue. I wanted to take a little
time to step back and tell the House why, ultimately, I count myself a
friend of Israel, first and foremost, in the middle east. That is
because I think of some fundamental truths.
In my maiden speech last week, I talked of the achievements of the
Labour Government in establishing full equality for all people in the
United Kingdom. Let us look at the middle east and ask ourselves,
where in the middle east is it best to be a woman, or where in the
middle east is it best to be gay? In Egypt, personal status laws
discriminate harshly against women on marriage, custody of children
and inheritance. In Jordan, a country which I consider to be a
positive force and one where the current ruler is trying to take it
forward, more than 20 women per annum, according to Amnesty
International, are killed for breaking social taboos. Israel had a
female Prime Minister before any party in Britain had even thought of
it, and it nearly had another one last year-I rather wish it had-in
Tzipi Livni.
Think about a gay person in the middle east. In Syria, it is not so
bad-three years in prison. In Iran, a gay person would get the death
penalty. In Israel, a gay person can rise to be a general in the armed
forces, and just last Friday 100,000 people marched in Tel Aviv to
celebrate the equality of gay people in Israel.
So then I ask myself, where in the middle east is it best to criticise
the Government in public? In Syria, it is simply not possible, because
the state controls every single aspect of the media. Reporters Without
Borders calls Iran,
      "the Middle East's biggest prison for journalists",
but it ranks Israel higher than the United States as a place for press
freedom-44th in the world and first in the middle east.
Finally, I ask myself, where is it best in the middle east to belong
to a religious or ethnic minority? In Syria, Kurds and Jews are not
allowed to take any part at all in political life. In Iran, one cannot
even go to university without passing an exam on Islamic ideology, and
one cannot get a senior post in any organisation unless one belongs to
the majority Shi'a group. In Israel, Israeli Arabs have always had all
rights-the same as Israeli Jews-except for one: they do not have to
serve in the armed forces, because the state of Israel recognises that
it would be unfair to set them against their Arab brothers. However,
they can vote and be elected, and many have been. There is even an
Arab-Israeli serving on the supreme court in Israel.
So let us be clear: for all its errors and excesses, which I and the
whole House see, Israel is an oasis in a desert-an oasis of freedom,
democracy and human rights in the middle east. We therefore have to
ask
14 Jun 2010 : Column 677
ourselves, why does Israel do those things that shock, pain and worry
us all? Why does it feel driven to inflict on the people of Gaza what
we all recognise, whether in law or not, as seemingly like collective
punishment? The answer is very simple: it is not just faced but
encircled by an enemy that wishes to destroy it.
So before the House pulls on its breeches and starts saddling up the
high horse, let us remind ourselves of how we-this place, this ancient
democracy, this ancient birthplace of freedom-reacted when we faced an
existential threat. We interned or deported long-time residents of
German and Italian origin and refugees from Nazi Germany-to our
everlasting shame. However, we did it, and with the approval of this
House. The Americans did the same with Japanese Americans and German
Americans, so we should be very careful before we start lecturing a
nation that was built by the survivors of a genocide, which took less
than five years to kill more than the current population of Jews in
Israel.
Rather than lecturing and sitting on that high horse, we should ask
ourselves, what practical things can we do instead of the huffing, the
puffing and the futile outrage? I, too, welcome the role of Tony Blair
in the middle east and in Palestine at the moment, so, first, we
should do everything that we can to support the Palestinian Authority
in the west bank and, in particular, Prime Minister Fayyad, so that
Palestinian people can see an alternative to Hamas which delivers
security, jobs and a normal life. That is all that they want.
Secondly, we must do everything we can to encourage Turkey to remain
aligned with Europe and the west, and not to feel that we do not want
it in the European Union or as part of the western alliance. Turkey is
key to us and to Israel, and we must ensure that Turkey knows it.
Finally, we must confront Iran. I am very glad that the Government
played such a pivotal role in achieving the sanctions that the UN
agreed last week. The middle east is a terrible area of the world,
with so many problems, but in ending I share the optimism that some
Members have expressed. Yes, the situation seems full of despair, but
let us look at the progress that has been made. There is a peace
treaty with Egypt, and I should point out that Israel has never
attacked a nation with which it has a full peace treaty. There is a
peace treaty also with Jordan, and across the Israeli political system
it is commonly accepted that a two-state solution with an independent
state for Palestinians is the right solution. I feel that progress is
being made, and further progress can be made if we quit the lectures
and just get down to supporting our friends and helping them to come
to an agreement.

 lucido rappresentante del popolo albionico
io preferisco lui:
Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab):  I was brought up as an
orthodox Jew and a Zionist. On a shelf in our kitchen, there was a tin
box for the Jewish National Fund, into which we put coins to help the
pioneers building a Jewish presence in Palestine.
I first went to Israel in 1961 and I have been there since more times
than I can count. I had family in Israel and have friends in Israel.
One of them fought in the wars of 1956, 1967 and 1973 and was wounded
in two of them. The tie clip that I am wearing is made from a campaign
decoration awarded to him, which he presented to me.
I have known most of the Prime Ministers of Israel, starting with the
founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Golda Meir was my friend, as
was Yigal Allon, Deputy Prime Minister, who, as a general, won the
Negev for Israel in the 1948 war of independence.
My parents came to Britain as refugees from Poland. Most of their
families were subsequently murdered by the Nazis in the holocaust. My
grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of
Staszow. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed.
My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers
murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The current Israeli
Government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt among
gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the holocaust as justification
for their murder of Palestinians. The implication is that Jewish lives
are precious, but the lives of Palestinians do not count.
On Sky News a few days ago, the spokeswoman for the Israeli army,
Major Leibovich, was asked about the Israeli killing of, at that time,
800 Palestinians—the total is now 1,000. She replied instantly that
      “500 of them were militants.”
That was the reply of a Nazi. I suppose that the Jews fighting for
their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been dismissed as
militants.
The Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni asserts that her Government
will have no dealings with Hamas, because they are terrorists. Tzipi
Livni’s father was Eitan Livni, chief operations officer of the
terrorist Irgun Zvai Leumi, who organised the blowing-up of the King
David hotel in Jerusalem, in which 91 victims were killed, including
four Jews.
Israel was born out of Jewish terrorism. Jewish terrorists hanged two
British sergeants and booby-trapped their corpses. Irgun, together
with the terrorist Stern gang, massacred 254 Palestinians in 1948 in
the village of Deir Yassin. Today, the current Israeli Government
indicate that they would be willing, in circumstances acceptable to
them, to negotiate with the Palestinian President Abbas of Fatah. It
is too late for that. They could have negotiated with Fatah’s previous
leader, Yasser Arafat, who was a friend of mine. Instead, they
besieged him in a bunker in Ramallah, where I visited him. Because of
the failings of Fatah since Arafat’s death, Hamas won the Palestinian
election in 2006. Hamas is a deeply nasty organisation, but it was
democratically elected, and it is the only game in town. The
boycotting of Hamas, including by our Government, has been a culpable
error, from which dreadful consequences have followed.
The great Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, with whom I campaigned
for peace on many platforms, said:
      “You make peace by talking to your enemies.”
However many Palestinians the Israelis murder in Gaza, they cannot
solve this existential problem by military means. Whenever and however
the fighting ends, there will still be 1.5 million Palestinians in
Gaza and 2.5 million more on the west bank. They are treated like dirt
by the Israelis, with hundreds of road blocks and with the ghastly
denizens of the illegal Jewish settlements harassing them as well. The
time will come, not so long from now, when they will outnumber the
Jewish population in Israel.
It is time for our Government to make clear to the Israeli Government
that their conduct and policies are unacceptable, and to impose a
total arms ban on Israel. It is time for peace, but real peace, not
the solution by conquest which is the Israelis’ real goal but which it
is impossible for them to achieve. They are not simply war criminals;
they are fools.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090115/debtext/90115-0013.htm
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090115/debtext/90115-0014.htm

c'è anche il video.
quasi 400.000 visite. Per un discorso parlamentare, non male, direi...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGuYjt6CP8