Cathal Berry (Kildare South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate. I will not speak for long, given my views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are well known at this stage. I very much welcome the report from Amnesty International. It may not be universally accepted, but it is certainly consistent with many similar reports in recent years and it chimes with my experience in the region over the past decade. Based on the report and what is happening on the ground, we can understand the inequality, discrimination, lack of freedom of movement, illegal settlements and forced evictions, and it is good that all of that has finally been catalogued in a comprehensive document.

I welcome some of the recommendations of the report and only wish they were easy to implement, not least in respect of the Gaza Strip, where the completely unjustified blockade should be lifted. Moreover, in respect of East Jerusalem, there should be a halt to the illegal settlements, while in the West Bank, there should be freedom of movement without any discrimination and a right of return for all the Palestinian refugees throughout the region and their descendants. They are noble yet basic aspirations; if only they would be implemented.

I greatly appreciate the Government's position - I think it is the correct one to adopt – supporting a two-state solution, with the end of the occupation that began in 1967, and with Jerusalem as the capital of both states. How realistic does the Minister consider that goal to be? Is it a consensus position among the international community or is Ireland an outlier? Are there main players in the globe who disagree with that position? What is holding us back from getting to it?

While I recognise the geopolitical realities in the region and on the Security Council, everything has changed utterly in the past week. There is an opportunity now for us to look at the Middle Eastern conflict, and indeed conflicts across the globe, through a very different prism, namely, that of the Ukrainian situation. Some of the calls from Deputies during this debate have been very reasonable. I appreciate that the Government's posture is one of diplomacy, but have we come to the point where we must move from advocacy towards compulsion? That is the question we have to ask. People can rightly ask where the sanctions are in this case, where the travel bans are, where the political isolation is and whether it has come to that. I appreciate diplomacy is the best way to go, but compulsion is an option to be considered.

Finally, I hate to use the Ukrainian crisis as an opportunity because it is a terrible tragedy, but we could use it as an opportunity from a Middle Eastern point of view. I would be grateful to hear the Minister's views on this. There is a relatively new Administration in the White House, which will run, we hope, for a further three years, and it is the same story in the Knesset, where there is a relatively new coalition government, with an Arab party as part of the coalition for the first time ever. Furthermore, there is now, I hope, a much more cohesive, organised and effective European Union. I do not know what the status of the Middle Eastern peace process is at the moment. Is any shuttle diplomacy going on? Is any entity or country taking the lead globally? Given that there seems to be a vacuum in that regard, does the Minister see the EU as being able to fill that vacuum and take a more leading role? It has much more credibility globally owing to how it has acted in the past week. Could the same credibility be applied to the Middle East?

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