Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that there is so much going on in the world, particularly in respect of Russia's inhumane invasion of Ukraine and the migration crisis, which I hope to get to shortly, but it is impossible to avert our gaze from what is occurring in Palestine right now. I find it quite lamentable that the Taoiseach did not mention it in his opening address and I would like to understand that a little more.

Last year was a deadly year for the Palestinian people. According to the UN, 2022 was in fact the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2006 when it first started to keep records of the depravity being imposed upon the Palestinian people by the state of Israel. Some 171 people were killed by the Israeli forces, including 30 children, and 9,000 Palestinian were injured during that same time.

This year has already proven to be even worse. Up until mid-March, 80 Palestinians had been killed, 17 of whom were children. In this same period, 13 Israelis, including five children, have been killed. The EU has to demonstrate its interest in getting involved here. Emboldened by a new extremist government, settler violence has intensified to its most extreme so that Palestinian peoples and the NGOs on the ground there are making terrifying comparisons to the Nakba of 1948. Surely, the Government, in concert with its EU partners must have something more substantial than words to invoke when a minister within the Israeli Government, Mr. Bezalel Smotrich, who having just been giving sweeping powers over the West Bank, expressed his horrendous view that “The town of Hawara needs to be [erased]". He went on: “...the State of Israel needs to do it, and not, heaven forbid, private [citizens].” The so-called private citizens working alongside the Israeli army had just at that particular time rampaged through the town of Hawara injuring 409 people and killing others. This is incredible. Surely, when a minister of a government the EU views as an ally, invokes a call to decimate a people and a place, it is time for actions, not just words or mealy-mouthed condemnation, which we have seen up to this point.

I fully understand Ireland's and, indeed,the EU’s desire for a two-state solution, in theory, to this conflict, as defined under the 1993 Oslo Accords, yet no steps have been taken to bring this about. The impunity granted to Israel is writing the obituary for the two-state solution. There is no peace process. Palestinians face the constant theft of their land and resources, increasing violence from out-of-control settlers, and are forced to listen to international politicians talk about a two-state solution they now regard as an impossibility. In contrast, Israel faces only occasional condemnation for its constant and determined project to remove, isolate, surround and control millions of Palestinians, and deny them their most basic rights. No meaningful action has ever been taken by Ireland or the international community, to make it clear to Israel that this situation must end. I cannot comprehend how that is not on the agenda for this EU meeting.

If we cannot do this alongside our partners in the EU, Ireland will have to lead and that start starts by accepting this tragedy for what it is, which is a cruel, unjust system of apartheid being enforced upon the Palestinian peoples by the state of Israel.

The Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Government as a whole has gone on record as saying the Government would not use the term "apartheid" in describing Israel’s policies against the Palestinians. Again, this is not, and should not just be, about the terms used. In the past year the Amnesty International report provides evidence that makes it very clear that, as a matter of law, the crime of apartheid is being perpetrated. That is not a glib term or phrase. All NGOs, including Amnesty International, who employ the term "apartheid" do not do so as a matter of phraseology. It is about law and respect for the rule of law, respect for human rights and the dignity of millions of Palestinians, which the international community has failed to protect for decades. As we equivocate, we make ourselves complicit in that. As we equivocate further, the situation on the ground in Palestine is getting worse.

The Amnesty International report provided a variety of recommendations. It called on Ireland as a member of the UN Security Council to "impose targeted sanctions, such as asset freezes, against Israeli officials most implicated in the crime of apartheid". It called on Ireland to support action to "impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel", which we can do in concert with our EU allies. The embargo should cover the "direct and indirect supply, sale or transfer, including transit and transshipment ... of all weapons, munitions and other military and security equipment, including the provision of training and other military and security assistance".

We have much work to do here and Ireland should, and has to, take a lead. If it is not done in concert with our EU partners, we need to stand forward to demonstrate leadership on this because the style of diplomacy on this issue to date has failed. We need a very different approach.

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