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

The greatest slaughter that has taken place in the Middle East in recent times was not, as the Taoiseach has suggested, a result of the people of the region slaughtering each other. The greatest slaughter in the region arose when the United-States-led coalition bombed Iraq back into the Stone Age and, in the process, according to some estimates, took up to 1 million lives directly or indirectly. This was the result of that barbaric assault. We are witnessing the bitter fruits of that US-led war now, as Iraq and Syria disintegrate.

If the Taoiseach is concerned about these things and wishes to make any contribution to resolving them, I call on him to undertake a simple thing. Will he join the international calls that are rising to de-list the Kurdistan Workers' Party, known as the PKK, from the international list of terror organisations? If there is one bright spark in the disastrous situation that is the Syrian nightmare, it is the resistance in Kobanê against ISIS. That resistance is telling, because one of the first places in the Kurdish areas of Syria in which the people liberated themselves from the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad was Kobanê, where the people rose up in a united movement of all the different tribal, religious and ethnic groups against his dictatorship. These same people are now fighting to defend themselves against the onslaught of ISIS. Those who represent the genuinely revolutionary forces in Syria and who have opposed Assad and ISIS in Aleppo have made their views clear. They raised a banner in the past week in response to US bombing in Syria. It read: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein." Below that were the words: "Afghanistan 2001, Iraq 2003, Syria 2014." The very people who have been the biggest victims of Assad and of the chaos ensuing from the ISIS offensive are calling for the cessation of the bombing to let them sort it out. They are calling for the resistance organisations that are fighting ISIS to be de-listed from the international terror list and for pressure to be put on the Turkish Government to lift its blockade, which is preventing Kurdish fighters from getting into Kobanê to help with the defence against ISIS.

The extraordinary hypocrisy of Turkey in essentially allowing the slow strangulation of Kobanê because of its fear of the Kurdish movement for self-determination is sickening. The international community needs to raise its voice and support the Kurdish people, their representative organisation in Kobanê, the PKK, and other groups that are fighting ISIS. That is what the Taoiseach should do if he really cares about what ISIS is doing and the threat it represents, and that is what they have said. They have asked the international community to tell the Turkish Government to stop the blockade preventing Kurdish fighters from getting in to defend Kobanê, and they believe they can sort ISIS out. The last thing they need is US bombs. In fact, US bombs are cementing support for ISIS among groups that had been previously fighting against it.

Recently in the House we were discussing the position of Irish troops on the Syrian border at the Golan Heights. The Minister said we need not worry about Irish troops in the buffer zone because it was not ISIS that was active in the area but al-Nusra Front. Does the Taoiseach know what al-Nusra Front is? It is an al-Qaeda affiliate. Our Minister was saying that we need not worry and that Irish troops were totally safe because the only active militants in that area were from al-Qaeda, which is fighting against ISIS. In fact, since the US bombing started, al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda-linked organisation, has made the case that the big enemy is the United States and that it will start to back ISIS from now on. The bombing has been counterproductive. The West needs to cut through all of that and simply allow the people who are resisting, the genuine revolutionary forces in Syria, to conduct their resistance against ISIS rather than manipulating the situation for its strategic interest. I am asking a specific question. Will the Taoiseach join the international calls to de-list the PKK from the list of international terror organisations, since it is fighting ISIS and defending Kobanê?

The true toll of the devastation in Gaza is only coming to light as the dust settles on the brutal 51-day assault by Israel. The consequences are absolutely devastating. Fully 13% of Gaza's housing stock has been destroyed in the offensive. A total of 20,000 housing units have been totally destroyed, leaving more than 108,000 people homeless. A total of 15 of Gaza's 32 hospitals have been damaged and six have been forced to close. Fully 45 of the 97 primary health care centres have been destroyed or badly damaged and 17 have been closed altogether. It is an absolute disaster. Against this background, will the Taoiseach please stop equating the firing of a few rockets from Gaza into Israel - with which I disagree - with this extraordinarily barbaric level of destruction of Gazan society? Will the Taoiseach join Desmond Tutu, who has called for the international community to boycott Israel? He said:

Those who continue to do business with Israel, who contribute to a sense of “normalcy” in Israeli society, are doing the people of Israel and Palestine a disservice.

He is saying that in the interests of Israelis and Palestinians there must be a boycott against the Israeli state for what it is doing to the Palestinian people. Will the Taoiseach join Desmond Tutu in supporting that call for a boycott?

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