Labhrás Ó Murchú (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The deteriorating situation for Palestinians has to be a source of concern for all decent-minded people. The massing of troops and tanks by Israel as a prelude to an assault on a downtrodden, deprived and defenceless people is reprehensible. The only thing that can come from such an assault, as we have seen in the past, is the slaughter of the innocents.

Surely we must have learned something from the other trouble spots in the world - Iraq being an example - which is that force is no substitute whatsoever for dialogue. There should be dialogue in this case. When a government of unity was established by the Palestinians, I thought that all of us, including Israel, would welcome that. Instead, however, Israel went on a diplomatic offensive to undermine it.

We saw exactly what happened in the North of Ireland when we took the power-sharing approach and dialogue began to move forward. That is precisely what is required at the moment.

My voice may be small-----