Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is an uncomfortable juxtaposition, a few days after Israel won the Eurovision Song Contest, to condemn the killing of innocent Palestinians by Israeli forces. Sadly, we will enter next year's song contest. Israel's celebration of the 70th anniversary of its declaration of independence presents another uncomfortable juxtaposition because it occurred as Palestine was marking Nakba Day and remembering the 700,000 Palestinians who had been forced to flee during the 1948 war. How can we reconcile the image of eight month old Laila Anwar al-Ghandour, the 59th victim of Israel's attack on protesters in Gaza, alongside the image of Ivanka Trump opening the new US embassy in Jerusalem? I suggest the cynical juxtaposition of events in recent days means that it is time for Ireland to reassess its relationship with Israel and the United States. First, we need to reassess our own relationship with Israel and ask whether we are doing enough to express our outrage at recent events. While we are supportive of Palestinian causes, we are less eager to confront Israel. We are complicit in the atrocities carried out by Israel because, alongside the European Union, we continue to see Israel as being above international law, even though it is currently in breach of over 30 UN resolutions and has engaged in decades of military occupation, oppression of protected civilians in Palestine and apartheid. Its continued illegal expansion into occupied territories has been denounced by the United Nations. We should not forget that in August 2014 it was discovered that in the previous three years Ireland had approved export licences for military goods worth up to €6.4 million to be shipped to Israel. That was in advance of the conflict in Gaza that year.

Palestinian civilians are classified as protected persons under international law. This makes it unlawful to target them with violence. It is categorically not an act of terrorism to protest at the Gaza fence or seek basic rights. Israel has the option of detaining Palestinians who cross the Gaza fence, but it deliberately chooses to use lethal force instead. We are complicit in the human rights violations that have occurred this week and in previous decades by continuing to trade with Israel's illegal settlements and supporting companies involved in settlement enterprise. Ireland could change this by respecting the 2004 decision of the International Court of Justice that nations must refrain from recognising Israeli settlements. We could do so by allowing a Bill currently before the Seanad to pass. In all of this, we have failed as a nation to properly recognise the state of Palestine. Promises and commitments have been made, but we have nothing to show for them. I question how quickly Ireland expelled a Russian diplomat in solidarity with the United Kingdom in response to the Salisbury attacks. There is not the same impetus to react similarly to the recent attacks by Israeli forces on innocent Palestinians. Until we respond adequately to the atrocities carried out by the Israeli military forces during the Nakba, we will be engaging in endless dialogue with ourselves.

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