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

We all agree that the Charlie Hebdokillings were appalling and are to be condemned outright. However, my question was trying to ascertain that unless we address the issue of double standards in foreign policy, the fuel that is driving the Middle Eastern and north African region towards extremes and towards intractable and perennial conflict will continue. At the very heart of that, and every survey and study shows that the people who have been radicalised and who have joined or given support to outfits like ISIS - this is not to justify it in any way because it should be condemned outright - is the fact that one of the key radicalising factors is the plight of the Palestinian people and the double standards of the Western world when it comes to continuing to ignore and allow Israel to persecute, kill and slaughter Palestinians with impunity and to deny and suppress in the most brutal fashion basic Palestinian human rights. One can add to that list what the Egyptian Government is doing to all of its opponents.

There is no consistency from the Western world in addressing these issues. To state the obvious, there is considerable double standards in that it would be inconceivable that a leading figure in Islamic State would have been invited to the demonstration in Paris. This State would not trade with Islamic State but, as I tried to demonstrate to the Taoiseach, Benjamin Netanyahu and his government are guilty of premeditated killing of Palestinians on the same scale and with the same vile ideology running behind it as we see from Islamic State. Yet, we still treat them as if they were a normal government; we trade and do business with them. The Taoiseach meets with them in Paris. That sends a message. The Taoiseach used very strong language, and rightly so, when he talked about ISIS and what it is doing in Syria. However, the same strength of language is not employed when it comes to the vile, sick language being used by the Israeli Government. There is no other word for the sort of language and thinking that the Israeli Government is employing. It is sick and twisted. That has to be said and action has to follow. At what point do we say it has gone over the line and that it cannot be treated like a normal state? At a certain point the world said it would no longer deal with South Africa because apartheid was not acceptable any more. Have we not reached that point with Israel when its government uses such language and carries out the sort of actions and pursues the sort of policies that it is pursuing? When do we say, "This has gone too far now, these are not normal people"?

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