WHEN the Peel Commission responded in 1937 to the Arab revolt with its recommendation to partition Palestine into a Jewish State and a Palestinian State, David Ben-Gurion said: “A partial Jewish State is not the end but the beginning, a powerful impetus in our historic effort to redeem the land in its entirety”.

Today, the facts on the ground indicate that much progress is being made in that direction.

By the building of its illegal settlements on the occupied West Bank, for example, Israel has effectively divided that piece of Palestine into three distinct areas. Divide and rule is the name of the game.

On October 22, 1997, speaking at the Islamic University in Gaza, the founder of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, said: “I want to proclaim loudly to the world that we are not fighting Jews because they are Jews, we are fighting them because they assaulted us, they killed us, they took our land and homes; they attacked our children and our women; they scattered us. All we want is our rights. We don’t want more.”

He was assassinated on March 22, 2004, by an Israeli helicopter gunship along with seven other Palestinians who were with him at the time, leaving a Mosque after prayers; 17 others were injured in the attack.

In my opinion, these statements just about sum up what the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is all about.

Because Britain helped create the present situation, it has a duty to help to sort it out, we cannot keep passing the buck to the Americans. I said as much to PM Tony Blair on more than one occasion when I was a Member of Parliament.

I made my last and final visit of three in 10 years to the Gaza Strip in April, 2008, (when I was nearly hit by an Kassam rocket at the Erez crossing point). It broke my heart to make that visit then; goodness knows what I would feel if I visited today.

I spent a long time talking to the doctors in Shifa Hospital and saw some horrific injuries in the intensive care unit.

Dr Eyad El-Sarraj, a mental health specialist who led the non-partisan campaign ‘To End the Siege on Gaza’, summed Gaza up with his five Ds — deprivation, despair, dependency, disintegration and defiance — and claimed that the Israeli blockade of Gaza was breeding more militants.

“The peace process is in formaldehyde”, he told us. And ever it will be without strong international pressure applied on the Israelis.

Dr Brian Iddon former Labour MP for Bolton South East