Madam Speaker, I am pleased to respond to the hon. member's comments and questions. First, it is important that UN resolutions be respected. As I pointed out, there are many that we could point to that have been completely violated and ignored in the Middle East over many years.
The issue though is on what basis will the resolutions be enforced. For us in the NDP, we believe strongly that the resolutions have to be enforced within the parameters of international law and within the UN. We are very opposed to the idea that President Bush has now set the stage or the agenda and moved the bar up. The goal posts continually change, almost on a daily basis, so that whatever is finally agreed will somehow no longer be good enough. That is something of which we should be incredibly suspicious and which we should speak against.
In terms of the situation in Israel, I have to ask the member if he considers it to be the act of a civilized democracy whereby a state would use its military apparatus to forcibly put people under occupation when that occupation is illegal? Is it the move of a civilized democracy when the state can use its apparatus to basically put a democratically elected leader under siege? I do not think so and we should be speaking out against that as well.
They are clearly different situations in Iraq and Israel. However the point I have made, which I think is relevant, is that it is hypocritical for the United States to focus on the one issue of what is going on in Iraq and somehow escalate this now to a war situation, while at the same time completely disregarding what has taken place in terms of an illegal occupation and a whole set of other people who have suffered as a result of that.