Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Minister on his new appointment and I wish him luck in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. I welcome the ambassador for the State of Palestine and our other guests.

All of us here in the Upper House of the Oireachtas are supposed to be parliamentarians. That is why we are here and why I had the privilege of being appointed here. We are supposed to uphold, create and develop a democratic society which values life and peace. If that is so, it is entirely right that we discuss, question and abhor the violence between the Palestinians and the Israelis. We are either parliamentarians representing a democratic society while at the same time watching the annihilation of a nation in front of our eyes, or we are not.

Since I came into the Seanad there has been an incessant, daily and sincere questioning of our own human rights in Ireland, our sexuality, our partnerships, direct provision, the quality of our educational opportunity, penal reform and our right to life. They all pale into a kind of different significance, if not a privileged insignificance in respect of the human rights in Gaza. All human rights are supposed to have the same value but it also seems to me that one Israeli soldier is worth 500 Palestinian children. How about that for the great new buzz word, “proportionality”, for fair play and the rules of war? In this war we know there are no rules.

I had the privilege of being in Palestine six months ago in peace time. I travelled through it. I was, as Senator Norris said, a witness to the greatest violation of human rights by one country over another, Israel over Palestine. It is, as my colleague has said, the greatest example of apartheid. The wall is higher, bigger, thicker and more evident than the Berlin wall. It runs through people’s homes, yards, farms, houses, business premises, olive groves and water, if the Israelis decide to leave the water on or turn it off. It runs through people’s fields, hills, trees and lives. Wherever Israel wants to put, push or further the wall, that will happen. It gets bigger, thicker and fatter every day, as they build it. The Palestinians have to go round it because they cannot go over it. They cannot have access or cross it. They queue for four hours to go to work and to leave work. They queue to come home and to leave their homes, if they have work. They cannot drive on the Israeli motorways without a pass. They cannot live, as my colleague said, without permits. Every Palestinian I met was living normally in absolute captivity. They live in refugee camps and outside those camps their lives are militarised beyond any normal existence. They live despite themselves.

As a parliamentarian in this Seanad I believe that if a child has to be killed to the core of a war it is a crime against humanity. It ranks as a deliberate crime against humanity. The Israeli mantra that all bombs, mortars, shells and ammunition are hidden in schools, hospitals, international areas, safe places and UN organisations is a clichéd lie. The Israeli mantra that members of Hamas are using their own children as human shields is an affront to the heartbeat of every child who has been rushed into Palestinian hospitals where all they have is a saline drip.

One of the greatest culprits in all of this is the toothless and insular Europe, which can only ever come to the fore when it is talking about the great god, the euro. God is the euro and the euro is God. We can do nothing else. Add to that the dysfunctionality of the UN and throw in the culprit of the great free world, otherwise known as the United States of America, and we get the finest combination of onlookers, ignorers and wilful powerlessness.

However, there is one extraordinary exception and he is Irish - John Ging of UNRWA. I suggest to the Israelis and the Palestinians that they begin with him as a broker of peace.

What can the Seanad do? We can do something. We can be a witness, if we call ourselves to be so. Personally I would like to see extraordinary and real sanctions against Israel for crimes against humanity. Above all nations, it should know what that means.