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

I asked the Taoiseach yesterday whether he and the European Union should condemn the shooting of what is now a total of 44 unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza in recent weeks by the Israeli forces. I welcome the fact that the Taoiseach condemned it, but really what I want to ask in the context of Europe, Donald Tusk and our role in Europe generally is whether we can move beyond the Taoiseach individually or this Parliament condemning what is going on to something actually being done about it by Europe. Europe is not some external observer to what is going on in Gaza. We give Israel favoured trade status. Israel is effectively an associate member of the European Union.

A great deal of European money goes into the West Bank and Gaza and, in many cases, the products of that funding get blown to pieces or demolished by the Israelis and then we have Israel flagrantly breaking international law, killing unarmed civilians at present and they will continue to do so for the next two weeks and Europe will do nothing. Could the Taoiseach speak up about this? When he meets Donald Tusk and is engaging at the European Council could he appeal to Europe to do something about this, to put some pressure on Israel to stop killing innocent people, to stop breaking international law week in, week out and to demand that some sanctions be imposed? In any other circumstances sanctions would be imposed on people when a state kills innocent people, breaks international law or illegally occupies a territory. We would say something should be done about that but, for some reason with Israel, Europe does nothing. It just stands by and allows it to happen. Could we be a bit more forceful in demanding that Europe shows some ethical principle in terms of what Israel is doing to the Palestinians?

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