John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputies McDonald and Mac Lochlainn. When Amnesty International or any of the organisations that labelled the actions of Israel as apartheid they are talking about a crime against humanity. The UN Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid states that practices and policies of racial discrimination and segregation such as those employed by the Israeli state against Palestinians are crimes that violate the principles of international law and the Charter of the United Nations. For Palestinians, this means their complete domination and oppression by the state of Israel. It means that no Palestinian is allowed to enjoy the same rights as any Jewish Israeli in the territory between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. The central tenet of the Israeli approach to the Palestinian people is to seize control of their territory. Israel sets out to achieve this through the erasure of the Palestinian identity through the denial of citizenship and nationality, and to reduce the status of Palestinian people in the eyes of the Israeli state to that of racially inferior subjects.

Palestinians are forced to endure the gauntlet of daily raids by Israeli security forces, violent attacks from illegal settlers, of being forcibly displaced from their homes and the destruction of their homes by the Israeli military to allow for the erection of illegal settlements. They are forcibly segregated. The lands fragmented, they are forced to travel separate roads while being subjected to a restrictive system of travel permits designed to reduce the Palestinian foothold on their own territory to a series of Bantustans. Palestinians endure imprisonment under administrative detention, which is detention without trial or evidence. Israel is the only country in the world that tries children in military courts. Today there are more than 200 children in detention in Israel, the majority of whom have not been convicted of any crime. Israel will not end the use of discriminatory legislation designed to exclusively target Palestinians until forced to do so by the actions of the international community.

Sinn Féin has cosigned a motion brought forward by People Before Profit. It is important that motion is acted upon because contained within it are the recommendations from Amnesty International. They touch on the immediate end of the annexation of Palestinian lands, a motion on which was passed by this House last year. Ireland was the first European country to declare that Israel has breached international law by annexing Palestinian lands. To end the destruction of Palestinian homes, the construction of illegal colonial settlements on illegally seized Palestinian lands and to end the collective punishment of the people of Gaza, ending the blockade and other restrictions on the movement of the population in Gaza, Amnesty International has called for the UN Security Council to impose targeted sanctions against Israeli officials implicated in the crime of apartheid. As a member of the UN Security Council, Ireland has a moral responsibility to show leadership on this issue.

Ireland's role on the UN Security Council must be made to mean something. The Minister needs to begin to challenge the international mindset that exists in regard to challenging Israel on its human rights record. He needs to call it as it is and to not mince his words. The Minister needs to not be of the mindset that it is not helpful to use the word "apartheid" because that is what is happening under his watch and the watch of the international eye. He needs to state clearly that Israel is guilty of operating a policy of apartheid against Palestinians. Ireland must be seen to be consistent in the defence of international law in all instances and of human rights be that in Ukraine or Palestine. Failure by Ireland and the international community will be judged by history as complicity in the crimes of the Israeli regime.

The UN Special Committee against Apartheid was the driving force in the UN battle against apartheid South Africa. It was the engine that drove the campaign for sanctions. It needs to be re-established. It needs to reignite an international movement against apartheid. The international community also needs to repudiate the designation by Israel of the six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organisations. This is nothing more than a blatant attempt to suppress human rights organisations who are involved in essential work in highlighting the human rights abuses of the Palestinian people.

History will judge those who sit on the fence. History will shame those who bury their heads in the sand while the Palestinian people continue to suffer at the hands of the oppressive, brutal, occupying apartheid state that is Israel. The Minister must act. He cannot afford to sit on his hands and not act. He must call out Israel for the apartheid policies and apartheid regime it operates against the Palestinian people.

See this speech in context