Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

A philosopher once wrote that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana is also known to have said that "Only the dead have seen the end of war". Those are two very appropriate sayings for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I recently watched two films, namely, "Schindler's List" and "Born in Gaza". There are many similarities between them but one that stood out to me was the use of gravestones as paving in a concentration camp in "Schindler's List" and very similar headstones in "Born in Gaza", when children visited the grave of their father who had been killed while they were there to water his plants. Both films are horrific and tell the stories of the ethnic cleansing of people who were very inconveniently in the way.

The international community must do more if we are not to be condemned to repeat history. Have we not learned lessons from Bosnia and Kosovo? We must address the root causes of the conflict, the occupation of Palestinian land, the displacement of the Palestinian people, the continued blockade of the occupied territories and the endless cycle of violence, which is inevitable if we do not act now.

Since 1967, Israeli authorities have uprooted more than 800,000 olive trees from an area five times the size of the Curragh of Kildare. They have targeted farmers to discourage them and their families from remaining on their own land. Ireland was instrumental in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and we must stand up for the Palestinian people. It is time to honour the commitment to recognise the Palestinian state. It is time to enact the occupied territories Bill and to ban imports from land that has been stolen from ordinary Palestinian families. The countries of the world have shown that they can work together to solve problems like Covid-19 and climate change and to respond to natural disasters. We must turn our efforts to a two-state solution for Palestine. Israel is breaking international law and there must be consequences for that.

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