Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I argued earlier that we needed to have a debate today instead of waiting until tomorrow or else more protesters would be killed. We have had the debate today, but another two protesters have been killed. Presumably, more will be killed as the day goes on and more will be killed tomorrow. The absolute horror of the oppression of the Palestinians has been brutally laid bare to the world. Every time I checked my phone yesterday the numbers of casualties and dead Palestinians had increased. The final figure for yesterday is 59, while a total of 113 have been killed since 30 March. As Deputy Boyd Barrett said, these protesters were slaughtered. They were murdered in cold blood, mostly by snipers. The victims included children and an eight month old baby who was killed by tear gas. They were not terrorists but peaceful protesters who were marching for their right to return to their homes.

They were marching to commemorate the Nakba - the expulsion or ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians in 1948 - and against President Donald Trump's incredibly provocative decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, which is a clear signal that the Palestinians will not be allowed to have a state.

We have to draw some conclusions about a state that behaves in this way. Israel likes to claim it is the only democracy in the Middle East, but it is not a democracy. It behaves as a terrorist and apartheid state. It terrorises the Palestinian people it oppresses within its borders, on the West Bank and in the open air prison camp of Gaza which I have visited. The right-wing Israeli regime is committed to the oppression, discrimination and persecution of the Palestinian people. It is completely opposed to any viable Palestinian state. It cannot be reasoned with. The reality is that these acts underline the fact that the Oslo agreement is dead, which has been obvious from the moment it was signed. It does not offer a viable route for justice for the Palestinians and never aimed to do so. Instead, its aim was to give limited concessions to cut across a mass movement. The idea that a peace agreement allowing for a viable Palestinian state would be granted by the right-wing Israeli establishment, having been brokered by imperialist powers such as the United States, is utterly unrealistic. The only route out of the horror of the Middle East and the occupation to a viable Palestinian state and justice for all of the people of the region is through a revolutionary struggle from below.

I pay tribute to the Palestinians who are protesting. They are not just victims, they are also heroes. As part of their struggle, they are engaging in peaceful protest in the knowledge that they can be slaughtered by snipers they cannot even see. There is a picture going around on social media of a guy called Fadi Abu Salah, a 29 year old in a wheelchair with a slingshot who was murdered yesterday by the Israeli forces. Such ordinary people across the region hold the key to the ending of the horror of the situation in the Middle East. One can see the outlines of what the Israeli establishment fears: a third intifada along the lines of the first which was a mass struggle from below that brought the Israeli establishment to the negotiating table. Shamefully, the aspirations of the Palestinians were sold out on that occasion with the signing of the Oslo accords. We are seeing marches on the borders and hearing calls for strike action. Crucially, democratic committees of struggle are ensuring the struggle is in the hands of ordinary Palestinians. That gives an outline of how the struggle can develop.

We need to be clear that the protests of Palestinians are absolutely peaceful. They have every right to defend themselves. Why on earth should they be expected to march defenceless and mown down by the Israeli military? They have a right to defend themselves. It is vital that an anti-war and an anti-occupation movement, involving Israeli Jews and Palestinians, be built within Israel to expose the reality that the corrupt Israeli establishment relies on fear about security to shore up its own position and implement an anti-working class position. My comrades in Maavak Sotzialisti, with others in Israel, organised a protest in Tel Aviv yesterday as part of their efforts to build a movement. If such forces combine with the powerful working classes in Egypt, Turkey, Iran and elsewhere in the region, they have the power to bring about a solution and kick out the Israeli establishment, the corrupt Arab elites - the likes of el-Sisi - and the imperialist powers that have no interest in facilitating a genuine peace or fighting for a lasting socialist solution involving a viable Palestinian state with a capital in east Jerusalem alongside a socialist Israel as part of a federation of the Middle East.

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