Zarah Sultana Hits Back At Ridiculous Stereotyping Over Israel Gaza War

Yesterday Parliament debated events in the Middle East, specifically Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and Israel's war in Gaza. Here's Labour MP for Coventry South, Zahra Sultana. Past mistakes in the Middle East should have taught this house that military intervention starting out as limited can quickly escalate, risking a sequence of events far larger and more terrible and risk even dragging us into war. It is for this reason, according to reports in the Times, that foreign office officials were, and I quote, incredibly nervous about last week's military assault in Yemen. Driving the region's instability is Israel's horrifying assault on Gaza which has now lasted more than a hundred days. So rather than giving Israel the green light to continue its brutal bombardment of Gaza and risking a wider conflict, will the Prime Minister seek to de-escalate the situation and call for an immediate ceasefire? Prime Minister. Perhaps the Honourable Lady would do well to call on Hamas and the Houthis to de-escalate the situation. Andrew Percy. Thank you Mr Speaker. Too many people give a free pass to the terrorists who perpetrated the worst murder of Jews and we've just seen an example of that, just as we saw examples of that on our streets this weekend, where people screamed Yemen, Yemen, turn another ship around. Completely unacceptable. Interventions starting out as limited can quickly escalate. That's all Zahra Soltani says and that's obviously true. Think World War One, Iraq, Afghanistan, all the consequences of removing Gaddafi in Libya. There's too many examples of precisely that. She then cites the Times newspaper of all places, highlighting that the foreign office, or at least some people there, were concerned about how this course of action could have downsides. Now that's not much of a surprise. It's literally their job to consider all eventualities and contingencies. If they weren't doing that, we should be worried. She then calls for the government to push for a de-escalation from Israel in its war with Gaza. Rishi Sunak then says she should call on the Houthis and Hamas to de-escalate. Rishi, we, Britain, are allies with Israel. We sell them stuff. We work with the IDF. We aren't allies with the Houthis, these dashing young men posting TikToks. We aren't on their side. What's our leverage in persuading them in the same way? Can you imagine? Houthi HQ, sorry lads, it's over. Zahra Soltani has condemned us in Parliament. Meanwhile, we do actually have influence with Israel. But it's the claim of Andrew Percy that is particularly extraordinary here. In response to Zahra Soltani citing, as I've said already, the Times newspaper, he claims she's giving a free pass to terrorists. How? Where? She simply called for a thoughtful approach as a conflict can quickly escalate, repeating things that others in the foreign and Commonwealth office have said. She then calls on the government to de-escalate things in Gaza, which in a strange way is sort of meant to be the Tory policy anyway. They're not calling for a ceasefire, but they they want things to de-escalate. They certainly don't want things to get any hotter. So how is Zahra Soltani quoting the Times, agreeing with foreign office officials, and in a broad way repeating government policy, you're giving a free pass to Hamas? What an utterly stupid thing to say. Zahra Soltani later replied with this point of order. In the previous statement, the Member for Brigham Ghoul implied that I had just, and I quote, given a free pass to the terrorists who carried out the October 7th attack. Mr Deputy Speaker, that claim is grotesquely untrue. My question to the Prime Minister in no way had that implication. I was calling for a de-escalation in the region and for an immediate ceasefire, and his accusation is absolutely untrue. In this House and elsewhere, I have repeatedly condemned the actions of Hamas and called for the release of all hostages. Moreover, the Member's gross accusation is playing to a racist trope, implying that because I am a Muslim, I support Hamas. So with rising Islamophobia and racist tropes, asking British Muslims to prove their loyalty, can I ask you for guidance on how to get a full retraction and apology from the Member for Brigham and Ghoul? Further to that point of order, Andrew Percy. As loathed as I am to engage in this silliness, let me be absolutely clear, let me be absolutely clear to the Honourable Lady. Not only did I not reference her, I have on numerous, if she would let me, if she'd listen to the response, on numerous occasions I have said too many people have failed to call out what I think is unacceptable. I've said that before. I'm not going to stop saying that I think people have given a free pass on occasions to behaviour and have not dealt with this with a fair hand. That is an open point of debate. I have called people out on my own side for that. If she could sit here and listen to me, it has absolutely nothing to do with the thing. But I don't want to engage in this silliness. So I will say, I will say to the Honourable Lady, I have absolutely no intention of inferring at all that she is in any, let me respond, that she is in any way in support of any of that. I'm sure she isn't. I never said that. I would never say that. But I'm also, Mr Deputy Speaker, not going to not say what I think on issues in this House and call out what I think is on this issue. Too many people in this place giving a free pass to one side whilst not acknowledging the horrors that the other side suffered. I would never engage in this silliness. You started the silliness. I would never say that. You did say that. I wouldn't infer that. Mr Percy, it wasn't an inference. You were literally jabbing your finger at her. You were pointing at her. That's not an inference. No inference. You're pointing at her. Joris, this was an extraordinary interaction for so many reasons, wasn't it? Zahra Sultana's biggest crime is to be a brown Muslim woman in circles of power and governance. No matter what she does or says, she will always be asked to apologise for her existence in places where the system is not supposed to allow her to exist and to have any influence. This is essentially what she's being asked to do, to apologise for existing, for being who she is. It's interesting when you look at the Tory party that claims to be completely against identity politics, but here we see that a brown woman like Zahra Sultana's identity is what they see first. No matter what she does, there's nothing she can do right because her identity, her otherness, will always be perceived by those people as the thing that defines her and that she has to act around. Her assumed proximity to Hamas or the Houthis here supersedes whatever she might have done or said. They don't care what she said. They never cared what she said. She could have said and worded it differently a million different ways. The result would have still been the same because all they see and all they take into consideration is her identity. That's the thing that they cannot stand and that they want her to apologise for constantly. How far does that go? Because, of course, there are some Muslims on Tory benches. Would you equally say that, look, unless you 100% get square behind everything that the government does, you don't really have the agency to think independently when it comes to things like foreign policy, most certainly in the Middle East? That shows the incredibly efficient process of tokenising that this government has been particularly really good at. As long as you toe the line of the dominant group of the hegemony, then your identity is not only tolerated, but celebrated or pushed forward because you are actually acting against your community or your identity. They love that. This is no coincidence if there are so many people of colour in this government. It's because they are the example of how identity is not actually that important in this. Even though those who claim that they hate identity politics, their entire policies and the way that they perform power is entirely built around that.