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

I want to make it clear that I have no time for the Iranian regime, nuclear weapons or nuclear power. Can the Minister explain the extraordinary double standards that apply when it comes to the treatment of Iran as against the treatment of Israel? Israel is ethnically cleansing Palestinians, illegally occupying their land and territory, denying them rights at every level, has launched more wars than any other state in the Middle East, has a nuclear arms arsenal, has refused to sign up the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and flouts all international laws in this regard but no sanctions are imposed on it. However, Iran has signed up to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and the International Atomic Energy Agency has said it is not developing a nuclear arms programme, and sanctions have been imposed on it. I do not understand it. Iran has never launched a war against anybody. The supreme leader of Iran, no matter what the we may think of him, has said that nuclear weapons are an evil and that they should never be developed in Iran. Why is it the case that all these sanctions and pressure are put on Iran and no sanctions or pressure are put on Israel which has 200 or 300 nuclear weapons and refuses to sign up to the nuclear anti-proliferation treaty?

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