Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am glad that journalists are armed with cameras, as, increasingly, are citizens by means of their smartphones. We would not know as much about what is happening in Ukraine, Israel, Palestine, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea, were it not for the fact that we have journalists and cameras. They are not weapons in any military sense, but the fact that journalists are armed with cameras is positive. That is how we know what is happening. The truth is that we have economic relations with many countries. I would love to live in a world where every country was a democracy upholding human rights at all times. Israel is a democracy but it does not uphold human rights at all times. That is particularly the case when it comes to its treatment of Palestinians. We have economic relations with the Gulf states and China, which are not even democracies at all, whereas Israel is. We have decided not to engage in boycotts of many countries around the world, but we have strict rules about Israel, which restrict engagement with Israeli companies that are active in settlement areas.

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