Do not equate Netanyahu with Hamas, Yair Golan aide tells Labour conference meeting

The event, chaired by Labour MP and LFI Vice-chair Damien Egan, also featured Middle East Minister Hamish Falconer, Palestinian peace activist and regional director of the Alliance for Middle East Peace Nivine Sandouka and Michael Stevens from defence think-tank Rusi.

Asked about why the government refrained from using the word “genocide” to refer to the conflict in Gaza, Falconer reiterated the government’s longstanding position that it was for a “court to determine whether or not such a crime is taking place”, even though he had “decried” Israeli actions in Gaza from the dispatch box in the House of Commons.

He added: “I will often talk in terms of risk rather than determinations, because I'm a minister, which is a powerful person, but it is not the same as a judge. It is not for me to say what crime is being committed.

“It is for me to take heed of international law, the responsibilities that flow from them, which for the Middle East minister, is making sure that I am not taking any actions that could allow international wrongful acts, whether that's any part of IHL (International Humanitarian Law) or indeed the Genocide Convention.”

Asked by the JC what was being done to ensure Hamas’ removal from power in the event of a ceasefire or agreement to end the war, the Middle East minister said he was “no fool” about how much of a challenge getting the terrorist group to disarm and to relinquish authority would be.

The former diplomat added: “I was in South Sudan for two years where disarmament programmes were being done. Trying to disarm anyone is about the hardest job you can possibly have. No one wants to go into a room full of guns and take them. That is a hard thing to do, but we have to focus on the practical challenge of doing that.”

Given the emerging regional consensus about the need to remove Hamas from power, including in a declaration by the Arab League in July, Falconer said it could be a “terrible mistake” for the Israeli government to continue to conduct the war in the manner it has done.

The Israeli government has not defeated Hamas, he said, and was less likely to “achieve that objective than a genuine regional consensus about trying to get them out of the Strip.

“I do not believe that a continued war in Gaza City is going to achieve the destruction of Hamas. If violence in Gaza was going to achieve the destruction of Hamas, we would have reached there already.”

Sandouka, whose comparison between Hamas and Netanyahu’s government prompted Cummings to make his comments, said that the continuation of the conflict was helping strengthen extremists on both sides.

“I'm a Palestinian, and I see my people, and also the Israelis, going more towards extremism and more towards radicalisation with the continuation of the conflict and the continuation of the war.

“The moment there is political horizon, the moment there is economic stability, there is better education for peace, there's changed narratives, together with, or parallel with, a regional approach of investment and openness and a better future. That's when people are going immediately to refuse extremism,” she added.

Meanwhile, Stevens suggested that any eventual agreement would be imperfect, and could still result in widespread sympathy for Hamas from elements of the Palestinian population.

“I worked on ISIS in eastern Syria and western Iraq; there are still members of those communities that sympathise with ISIS. You've got two choices. You either deal with the situation and you try and calm it down, or you take the other option, which is you try and kill everyone.”