Eric Byrne (Dublin South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Four hours later. I welcome the ambassador. The ambassador’s suggestions today read to me as if everybody in the world is marching out of step except Israel on the plans to expand or develop new settlements. The ambassador condemned the position of the Irish Government, which has condemned the Israeli position. The United States, Israel’s closest ally, has condemned it, and the European Union has condemned it. It begs the question as to how we could all be out of step in interpreting international law, international agreements, UN mandates, etc.

The ambassador could start by rebuilding our trust in the embassy through instructing his staff to stop posting silly, childish posts of the Molly Malone statue dressed in a burqa. It is provocative, unnecessary, childish and silly. What we are dealing with here, as the ambassador will have heard in the contribution by the ambassador from Palestine, is a serious issue of life and death, the regional politics of the region, the Middle East, and what is evolving.

Does the ambassador concur with the statement of the Palestinian ambassador that relationships must change between Israel, the Palestinians and third-party states and be transformed into a relationship centred on accountability? I am around a reasonably long time. We believed when Mr. Yasser Arafat addressed the United Nations, the PLO had reached an agreement and the Oslo Accords were negotiated that we were on the road to a two-state arrangement. The ambassador condemned Mr. Arafat so viciously. The PLO is now divided, and one constituent group is Fatah. There is now Hamas, and on the border is ISIS. The security of the region, from an Israeli perspective, is becoming increasingly threatened because of the failure of diplomacy. I argue that Israel’s right-wing Government and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Lieberman, do not seem to be interested in diplomacy. That the ambassador can come in here and condemn us all as being out of step with Israeli thinking on what constitutes a development of a settlement really begs the question as to whether Israel can be so correct, in the order of 100%, in its interpretation of international events.

The ambassador says Israel will not speak to Hamas. I would not like to go to bed with Hamas either. The Irish Government did so with a terrorist organisation. The ambassador will have heard some contributions from a member of Sinn Féin. We had to deal with terrorists in this country for 30 years. There were 3,000 deaths. This number is not comparable to that in the countries in the Middle East but we have to talk to the terrorists. Former US President, Ronald Reagan, went to Russia and opened dialogue with the Russians, which was unheard of. People did the same with China. The enemies have to be spoken to.

I appeal to the ambassador to recognise that we in Ireland applaud and play a very important role in the peace process.

We are up on the Golan Heights where our soldiers' lives are in danger. We have lost many soldiers in the region and hope we do not lose any more. We ask the witnesses to recognise that sooner or later the Palestinians will gain their statehood and receive recognition through the United Nations - they only have observer status at the moment - as a matter of historical inevitability and that we are moving towards the day when the shaking of hands will be consolidated between the Israelis and the Palestinians.