Peace in the Middle East needs active engagement of the Arab states - and tough love for Israel - Bill Rammell

Allowing for population difference that’s the equivalent of 10,000 Brits being slaughtered. Sheryl Sandberg’s film “Screams before Silence”, shows a young Israeli girl telling of having to step over the body of her father, only to have her young sister shot in the face and killed as well, because she kept fainting, thus inconveniencing her Hamas kidnappers. Shocking and inhuman.

When I hear protesters about Gaza express sympathy for Hamas (a recent poll showed 10 per cent of young people support Hamas), it makes my blood run cold.

So, I supported and do support Israel’s right to self-defence in response to Hamas slaughter.

Yet, Israel’s response in Gaza has left its friends aching with concern. Conservative figures from Oxfam show that more than 6,000 women and 11,000 children were killed in Gaza by the Israeli military over the last 12 months.

That’s more women and children killed than in the equivalent period of any other conflict over the past two decades.

Insufficient supplies of medicine and food have been allowed by Israel into Gaza worsening the situation hugely.

Some 60 per cent of British people, according to the latest polling, say Israel’s military action in Gaza has gone too far. And 73 per cent support an immediate ceasefire, as does our government.

The conflict has spread to Lebanon with the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in early October in response to 12 months of Hezbollah missile attacks on Israel and the displacement of 65,000 Israelis.

Again, the actions of Israel are understandable, but it's not clear how this ends and there needs to be an immediate ceasefire.

The whole conflict is turbo charged by the actions and ideology of Iran which sponsors Hamas and Hezbollah and other terror groups which attack Israel and deny its’ right to exist.

In seeking a broader resolution of conflict the Palestinians are hobbled by atrocious and poor leadership by those who purport to act on their behalf.

Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist groups which do not represent and are not supported by the overwhelming majority of Palestinians.

And the depressing reality is that the Netanyahu Government is in hock to religious extremists, and there is a real sense that Netanyahu does not have an end game in sight, which secures the return of the hostages and peace and security.

In part because he fears the end of the war will mean the end of his Government and his prosecution in Israel for corruption.

As the widely respected Jewish journalist Daniel Finkelstein, who supports Israel, wrote last week: "I do not trust Benjamin Netanyahu…I nonetheless feel uncomfortable relying on his government’s word and being sure about its actions."

Very wise words.

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Both the Israelis and the Palestinians deserve better than this.

So, where are these conflicts and this 76-year-old (at least) conflict going? For those who write, chant and protest with simplistic slogans about the “river to the sea” (without acknowledging and trying to justify that this means the end of Israel) and demand our Government end this conflict (as if that were in its gift), I say as someone who as a Foreign Minister engaged widely with Israel and the Palestinians, this is bloody difficult.

Peace and security will only come through renewed, concerted international pressure, including the active engagement of the Arab states. And that must include tough love for Israel.

I well remember a conversation with the Deputy Prime Minister of Israel in 2008 during a previous war in Gaza, who said to me, “You know Bill, you guys need to be tougher on us”. She meant we must pressure Israel to resist its own extremists.

We need to push for an immediate ceasefire, then a renewed concerted push for a two-state solution, with investment and support from the Arab States and the whole international community, which is still the only viable route to peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians.