Madam Speaker, I do wish the member would have listened to my entire speech. He may have agreed with more than he may think.
He must have been talking to different people than I was. When I was talking to people in Ramallah, Hebron, Bethlehem and also in Jerusalem, I talked to people on both sides of this issue, from former members of the Knesset, who are working toward peace, to people that are working in the Palestinian government.
I do not think anybody really wants to see BDS applied, but the fact remains that we are talking about an occupation, unless the member and the Conservative Party break with international consensus and think there is no occupation of Palestinian land. People who have actually been to the West Bank have seen with their own eyes that there is a military occupation of Palestinian territory in full violation of the fourth Geneva Convention. The entire world recognizes that but I am not sure the Conservative Party does. If that is the case, then one has to ask what tools exist at our disposal to help persuade an occupying force to cease that occupation.
As I said in the case of Russia occupying Crimea, the Conservatives have no problem whatsoever calling for full sanctions on Russia, as they should, because Russia has violated the sovereignty of another country and is in illegal occupation of Crimea. Israel equally is in illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, but my friend in the Conservative Party does not seem to think that any steps need to be taken to put pressure on Israel.
If we do not want there to be violence, and nobody does, if we do not want a violent resolution to this, if we want the parties to sit down at a table, then a legitimate question arises as to how we can put pressure on the parties to do that when they clearly are not interested in doing that. I believe pressure needs to be put on the Palestinian side as well.
I did hear from the Palestinian authorities I spoke to that they were willing to meet any time, anywhere, and without preconditions. I would call upon them to honour that commitment and sit down with the Israelis so that there could be a peaceful resolution to this issue.