Johnny Mythen (Wexford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The report by Amnesty International is a scathing indictment of the policies of the state of Israel towards the Palestinian people. It is not an easy read. It sets out a catalogue of oppression, state discrimination and the widespread denial of basic human rights. It contains graphic detail on what it is like to live under apartheid, which is a series of criminal policies carefully designed to break the spirit and resolve of people in order to steal their land. Make no mistake about it. This is about land.

To complete this programme of theft, the Israeli authorities must remove the very idea of Palestine. The reality of the Israeli vision for the Palestinian people is played out nightly. Doors are kicked down by violent thugs in uniform. Children scream as parents and siblings are torn from their beds. This would be bad enough if it was mindless violence but it is much more than that. It is a concentrated campaign of coercion, ruthlessly administered by Israeli security forces in the name of their government with the objective of terrorising people from their homes and land. When Palestinians cannot be terrorised from their homes, the Israelis use huge diggers to raze their homes to the ground, leaving whole families homeless. On the site where Palestinian homes once stood, they erect illegal settlements in their place in blatant breach of international law.

Apartheid is a cruel and inhumane system and a gross abuse of human rights. It is the splitting up of families and segregation of Palestinian communities. It is being forced to use a different road. Like the apartheid system of South Africa, Palestinians are being forced into Bantustans, that is, fragmented segments of inferior land where a person requires the permission of his or her oppressor through the issuing of permits before he or she is allowed to travel, even to visit families.

The Israeli authorities recently undertook to designate six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organisations, for which they offered not a sliver of reliable evidence. Two of these NGOs are funded by the Irish taxpayer. This was a blatant attempt to suppress the role of those organisations in bringing to the attention of the whole world the searing oppression visited upon innocent Palestinians. The failure of the Government to attempt to counter the chilling effect of this move has been disappointing. Last week, I was disappointed that this institution - the seat of the Irish Government - allowed room for an apologist for the inhumane policies of the Israeli Government a platform in the audiovisual room of the Dáil complex. She spoke nothing but Israeli propaganda.

The Irish Government has a seat on the UN Security Council. Ireland must use this seat to engage with the Israeli Government to stop the persecution of the Palestinian people and the annexation of their homelands. Last year, the reality of the Israeli de facto annexation of Palestinian territories was recognised through the motion passed by the Dáil.

The people of Ireland can and always will identify with oppressed people across the world. Just as we must help the Ukrainian people as best we can, we must also stand against apartheid in all its shapes and forms. We must support the Palestinians and their rightful place among the nations. There can be no two-state solution if a Palestinian state is no longer viable.

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