Northern Ireland Assembly: Members' Statements - Oct 7

October 7 Attacks

Mr O'Toole: I want to reflect on the past year. On October 7 2023, Hamas launched an attack in Israel. It was a violent attack that has to be consistently condemned. It was unjustified and unjustifiable. I acknowledge and affirm the profound effect that it had on people living in Israel. They were shocking, shocking acts of violence, and innocent lives were taken. It is, however, impossible to speak of that day in isolation from the year that has followed. The year that has followed has been one of almost limitless violence visited on, first, the people of Gaza by the state of Israel and, subsequently, other neighbours of Israel. We in this place have come to understand that the Old Testament quality of an eye for an eye simply leads to a cycle of never-ending, limitless and ever more depraved violence.

I want to reflect on the innocent lives lost, first, on 7 October, and on the tens of thousands of innocent people, including tens of thousands of children, in Gaza and now Lebanon who are being bombed in their homes. They have no defence and no ability to know what is about to happen to them. There is no justification for the scale of violence wrought by Israel over the past year. I want to be clear in saying that 7 October was a disgraceful, grotesque act of violence visited on people. People around the world are rightly memorialising that day, and I do not in any way want to take away from that. However, it would be impossible to reflect on that day without saying that the memory of those people and, indeed, the broader cause of stability, peace and justice in the Middle East have not been served by the limitless violence that has been visited by Israel on that region since. It must be said that the states that have continued to arm and facilitate that action have, I am afraid, created long-term problems in that region and more globally that we will deal with for generations. There are babies alive now who will be dealing with the trauma — possibly with physical injuries and trauma — at the end of this century.

Not only do we need a ceasefire, we need a process to create a just, lasting settlement for the Palestinian people and, yes, security for Israelis. We cannot have what we have had over the past year. It has been the most indescribable year —

Mr Speaker: The Member's time is up.

Mr O'Toole: — of pain and suffering.

Mr Frew: I rise today to remember the events of that terrible day, 7 October, in the state of Israel against the Israeli people. It was a day that changed the world for every single Israeli citizen and every single Palestinian. My heart goes out to those people today. That Hamas attack on innocent civilians of the state of Israel has no comparison with anything that that group did in the past.

It changed the mindset of the Israeli state to where we are now.

12.30 pm

We can all talk in stats. We can all talk about historical events. Today, however, I want to remember one of the 97 hostages who remain captive and are still missing: a young lady called Emily Damari, who was 27 when she was captured. She was removed from her kibbutz. I have not met Emily, but I have prayed for her consistently because I have met her mum. That was one of the most impactful things that I have ever experienced. How does Emily's mum feel? I met her six months into Emily's captivity; it has now been a year. They have heard nothing about Emily. They do not know whether she is alive or dead. The intelligence reports from six months ago maintained that she was alive, but I do not know whether those reports say the same thing today.

Emily's family spoke at the commemoration services at the Nova music festival today. It is absolutely heartbreaking to hear the pain that that family and all families caught up in that atrocity and the subsequent conflict bear to this day. My heart and my prayers go out to everyone caught up in those activities.

October 7 Attacks: Antisemitism

Dr Aiken: Today marks the first anniversary of the horrific and barbaric terrorist attack on Israel. The horror of that extreme example of racist and sectarian hate goes well beyond the statistics of 1,191 murdered, over 4,834 injured and 218 taken hostage. The violent attacks against the old, women, children and men were accompanied by the wide use of rape, torture, beheading and burning people alive: examples of grotesque violence that, regrettably, have been the mark of terror in this age, especially elsewhere across the Middle East and the surrounding region, in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Sudan.

What adds specifically to that horror and immeasurably to its impact on the people of Israel and our Jewish friends and colleagues is the blatantly anti-Semitic commentary from far too many politicians, academics, media commentators and so-called activists; commentary that blames the victims. It did not even take a day before that perverse anti-Semitic gloating, caricature and glorification of crimes against humanity became the normal discourse. It pains me, as it should all right-minded people across this island, that our small and vulnerable Jewish community should become the centre of so many of those ingrained anti-Semitic tropes.

It is almost as though, to those racist commentators, no matter what sort of racist apologists they are, the lives of women, children, men, members of the LGBT community, the disabled and even a young 12-year-old autistic girl and avid Harry Potter fan, Noya Dan, did not count, just because they were Jewish, and, again, murder, torture, kidnapping and depraved sexual violence somehow do not count because the victims are Jewish. The word "othering", that horrible all-island trait of discounting and dehumanising the lives of those we do not agree with, making them some sort of Untermenschen, applies far too strongly here, especially if it has anything to do with Israel.

It is far too easy for some to rapidly fall into blaming-Israel-for-everything mode, as if that somehow excuses antisemitic race hate. It does not. If there is a lesson we could and should learn, it is that racism and sectarianism, whatever its form, is toxic. Maybe, at least in the Assembly, hopefully, and across wider society on this island, we will. Those so-called commentators should stop and reflect on the additional horror that they have inflicted on our Jewish community by their espousal of antisemitism.

There is no space for antisemitism in the Assembly or anywhere else.