Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 10 December 2014

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade

Palestine and Israel: Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel

3:30 pm

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

Ms Minch said that we missed the boat and that we should have recognised the state of Palestine before now. It is questionable because I pose to her the following question. What difference would it have made? Today, we, hopefully, have the merging of Fatah with Hamas and one now has the Palestinian Authority. Hamas will not release its authority at a governmental level to the Palestinian Authority. There are terrible tensions here. Let us call a spade a spade. It is important for the Palestinians that we give this moral support tonight. However, would the witnesses not agree that if every country theoretically looked at a map and said that they recognised that state, without a government that is resourced and capable of running it, we would be putting the cart before the house? Surely we should be resourcing the Palestinian Authority, which is the representative body of the three different zones? If we do not have a government that is capable of running the place, should we not put our resources in the direction of empowering and resourcing it and having it consolidate with a view to being internationally recognised as a potential or actual government of a state that all the countries in the world have recognised?

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