John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is important that we acknowledge here today that at a time when the world is being assailed with campaigns of misinformation, where technology has been appropriated as a tool of hybrid warfare, that the role of journalism has never been more important. It is this role, which often provides the sole counterpoint to the increasing instances of fabricated self-serving narratives of powerful leaders and states corrupted with ambition, which provides an intrinsic defence of justice itself. With the weaponisation of narrative, those who seek to illuminate the truth to project it for a global audience become the target of autocrats and criminals.

Between 1992 and 2022, 923 journalists have been reported as murdered across the globe as a result of their work. Last year alone witnessed the deaths of at least 50 journalists, with 302 imprisoned, including Mr. Julian Assange. Since Russia launched its bloody invasion of Ukraine in February, at least 23 journalists have been killed there, including the Irish journalist, Mr. Pierre Zakrzewski. We remember Pierre and the other journalists who have died, including Irish journalists Lyra McKee and Martin O'Hagan here in Ireland. I also want to mention the courage and the bravery of those journalists who remain on the ground in the war zone in Ukraine, working tirelessly to uncover the truth of what is being visited upon ordinary people, often amidst dangerous and horrific conditions.

On 11 May, just short of two weeks ago, Israeli forces carried out the execution of the veteran American-Palestinian journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh. Shireen was shot in the face by an Israeli military sniper, despite the fact that she was wearing a blue vest, clearly identifying her as a member of the press. Her colleague, who was wounded in the attack, remained under sustained gunfire from Israeli forces for some time after the death of Shireen. Shireen was shot to silence her voice, a voice that fearlessly reported on the oppression and harassment visited upon the Palestinian people by the Israeli occupation authorities.

The motivation behind the attack on Shireen is similar to the motivation behind the decision by the Israeli authorities to designate the six internationally respected Palestinian human rights non-government organisations, NGOs, as terror entities last year. Earlier this week, we witnessed the Israeli apartheid regime refuse entry to an EU delegation to the occupied Palestinian territories. This delegation also consisted of two Irish MEPs, one of which is my party colleague, Mr. Chris MacManus. Israel also consistently refuses to allow the entry of the UN special rapporteur or UN human rights committee members into the occupied Palestinian territories. Israel wants to silence the civic voice of Palestine. It wants to suppress the truth of its apartheid policies. It does not want the world to hear of its crimes and it wants to continue with its campaign of the illegal annexation of Palestinian territories.

The Israeli High Court has just ruled that the largest expulsion and forced transfer of Palestinians to take place since the beginning of the Israeli military occupation of Palestine in 1967 can go ahead. That could commence any day now. If allowed to go ahead, this would mean the forced eviction of over 1,000 Palestinians, including 500 children. The UN and international, Israeli and Palestinian human rights organisations have called this another grave violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and a possible war crime.

I take this opportunity to echo the calls of the Palestinian Authority for the International Criminal Court to conduct an investigation into the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh as a war crime. I ask that the Government and the Minister would actively support and move on this demand. Furthermore, the Government and the Minister should use Ireland’s position on the UN Security Council and in the EU to call for Israel to be held accountable for Shireen's murder. For far too long the international community has been allowed off the hook and it has been allowed to look the other way while these crimes continue. There is a moral onus on global leaders and governments to act once and for all and to hold Israel to account for its inhumane treatment of the Palestinian people.

The failure to act to date has merely emboldened the Israeli state, leading to greater and greater levels of oppression to the point where it now feels confident enough to murder an internationally renowned journalist in cold blood in front of cameras. I found it remarkable, albeit predictable, to listen to the Israeli response in the immediate aftermath of the murder. I could almost hear the voice of General Mike Jackson, the former head of the British army, and the chief and first apologist on the ground for the parachute regiment of the British army in the immediate aftermath of the Ballymurphy massacre and Bloody Sunday. The disgraceful attempt by the Israelis to hijack and obscure the truth, to introduce doubt and confusion, though reprehensible, was entirely predictable. The truth, however, is not that easily concealed.

The Israelis took another page out of the British doctrine on counter-insurgency in Ireland when they attacked the funeral of Shireen, beating mourners mercilessly as they attempted to seize the Palestinian flag from the coffin. This is a picture that was all too common in the North during the 1980s as the British state sought through its agents in the Royal Ulster Constabulary to terrorise the nationalist population into defeat. It did not work in the North and it certainly will not work in Palestine. If international law is to mean anything, and it must, there absolutely needs to be a full and independent investigation into the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh.

I will end with a question to the Government. What is this Government going to do to hold this brutal, apartheid regime to account for its continual flouting of international law? Words are welcome but actions mean everything.

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