Adel Hana/AP/Press Association. All rights reserved.Next year will mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration as well as the 50th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. With no sign of an active peace process between the parties, here in Britain we have a historic responsibility to seriously challenge the Israeli government’s conduct in the West Bank and Gaza. On a recent visit to the West Bank, I saw powerfully for myself the need for better legal protection for young Palestinians. Without this I fear that we will engender an entire lost generation of forgotten Palestinian children.
Yair Golan, the deputy head of the Israeli military, caused an uproar in April when he called for "national soul-searching" and warned that “there is nothing easier than to behave like an animal and to act sanctimoniously”. Earlier this year I understood better what he meant when I found myself sitting in disbelief whilst watching proceedings unfold in Ofer Israeli military court in the occupied West Bank.
Israel is a democracy that claims to practice the rule of law. But here were Palestinian children, shuffling into court with their hands tied and their feet manacled. Waiting to go into the court room, we spoke to families who often haven’t seen their children for weeks and only then after struggling on lengthy journeys through numerous checkpoints. They told us – a cross-Party group of UK Parliamentarians – their personal experiences in a defeated, world-weary way.
