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Earlier this week, I was denied entry into Israel while on a humanitarian parliamentary delegation organised by the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding (CAABU). The NGO is one of the most active and respected bodies working on the Middle East in the British parliament. It promotes conflict resolution, human rights and civil society.
The purpose of my visit, alongside my parliamentary colleague Simon Opher, a doctor like me, was to begin to understand the state of healthcare for Palestinians in the West Bank. Unfortunately, we never set foot in Israel, let alone visited any hospitals in the occupied territories.
Instead, all I was permitted to see was the no man’s land of the Sheikh Hussein border crossing, the Jordan river reduced to a trickle. As I waited while the border officials made up their minds about me, I finished off the one thing I’d brought with me to eat – a small bag of KP nuts – and reflected on how low Israel has been brought by its current government and how much it has changed, almost beyond recognition.
It’s not the first time that Israel has denied British parliamentarians entry – a similar fate befell two of my colleagues in April. I don’t defend their removal from Israel for a moment, but my removal is different.
It represents the extent to which the Israeli government has isolated itself. It saddens me to say that Israel today seems to be a world away from the inclusive, pluralistic, open and democratic principles on which it was founded in 1948.
I am Jewish, one of just a dozen or so Jewish members of the House of Commons. I visited Israel for the first time as an idealistic medical student and have since returned for happy holidays, visiting family who live there. I am a member of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and a committed supporter of my local synagogue.
The official Israeli document denying my entry cited “public security or public safety or public order considerations”, without providing any explanation as to how I, a 67-year-old former ear, nose and throat surgeon from Suffolk, might pose any threat at all.
I decided to join the delegation because it would have given me an opportunity to talk to doctors, patients and medical charities on the ground, and expand my knowledge of the horrendous events in the Middle East and how it is affecting medical facilities, medics and the patients they treat. As parliamentarians, we have a responsibility to be as informed as possible.
We have had months of devastating images broadcast nightly on our TV screens as the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza unfolds. Transparency is the only way we can work towards a peaceful solution to this devastating war. It is only through talking and understanding that we have a chance for peace. Only with openness and honesty can progress be made in good faith.
Gaza has already been totally cut off to journalists, diplomats and human rights advocates. Parliamentarians are now being denied entry to the West Bank.
A cousin texted me as I returned home: “It exemplifies everything that is rotten about the regime and how it is indulged.”
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My admiration for the many British doctors and healthcare workers who have travelled to the region to work tirelessly in appalling situations to care for those affected by the war remains as strong as ever. Regrettably, I was prevented from conveying that admiration in person and from reporting back to my colleagues in the UK on what I was able to observe and learn on the ground.
Israel once represented hope for a generation of Jews. It pains me greatly to say that the friendships that we in the Jewish community once thought eternal are now being undermined by the present Israeli government.
As I got into a car to return to Amman in Jordan, less than 24 hours after my arrival, I was left wondering: what has become of the state of Israel?
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Peter Prinsley is the Labour MP for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket
