Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank Dr. Sabella for his presentation, which I very much appreciate. As always, I also thank Mr. Abdelrazek. In the case of Khalida Jarrar, one thing the joint committee, as fellow parliamentarians, should do is make representations to the Israelis, making clear that it is outrageous and disgraceful that a person has been imprisoned for no other reason than her political views. Then again, everything Israel does vis-à-visthe Palestinians is disgraceful.

At this stage, does Dr. Sabella not believe that Israel has no interest in a reasonable or just settlement and is playing the world community in whatever way it can, either by ignoring it or pretending to negotiate? Is it not the case that Israel has only ever been interested in creating facts on the ground to expand the territory of Israel and destroy any hopes of Palestinian self-determination? My strongly held view has just been confirmed.

On an autobiographical note, the only reason I am involved in politics is that I was in Bethlehem on Christmas Eve 1987, having visited al-Fawwar refugee camp the previous day with Palestinian friends with whom I had been working on an Israeli moshav at the Dead Sea. We were chased around Bethlehem and there had been shooting and large-scale conflict in the refugee camp, which was terrifying and shocking. I chose to get involved in politics when I returned to Ireland. Since then, all I have seen is that the position has become progressively worse, despite all the hand-wringing and tokenistic concern shown for the Palestinian cause. Is it not time to be more robust and call Israel for what it is, namely, a rogue state? Is it not pointless to try to negotiate with Israel because it is not interested in negotiating? Should we not treat Israel and characterise its behaviour in the same way that we treated and characterised apartheid South Africa? If we do not do so, are we not assisting the Israelis and, if one likes, the enemies of Palestine, by allowing the conflict to be characterised as an intractable fight between Arabs and Jews?

It suits them; that is the way they want to present it because if it can be presented like that, people in Europe just switch off and say, "Well, that is the sort of stuff that goes on in the Middle East". We need to break through that narrative and say this is not about Jews versus Arabs, religion, or a clash of civilisations. This is about a racist aggressive rogue state. I would be interested in Dr. Sabella's comments on this. It is also about a network of despotic states in the region that are also determined to crush their own populations, including the el-Sisi regime in Egypt, the Saudi regime or other regimes in the Gulf. They have always been about crushing their own people. Israel is the most extreme example of this. The West has played at best a duplicitous game because it has always continued to support Israel. It continues to trade with it and treat it as a normal state despite its flagrant human rights violations. It also continues to arm and support the worst elements in the Middle East against the Arab population.

In that context, as a way of breaking through that cul-de-sac, do we not now need to start to talk about one person, one vote, the one-state solution, the one Palestine, because it cuts through that narrative, which suits them? The history of partition of any land has always been civil war and perennial fighting. It has become apparent that the two-state solution leads to a perennial fight over where the boundaries are to be drawn and that fight never ends. Would it not be better to cut across that by talking about one person, one vote as the way to reframe what is at stake in Palestine?