Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I want to ask the Taoiseach a question I asked him the other day in the context of his discussions with his European counterparts to which I never get an answer. I have asked several times and I asked the Tánaiste and other Ministers. The Taoiseach and his European counterparts have within a very short space of time imposed sanctions on Putin and Russia for what is unquestionably a barbaric, unjustified and murderous invasion of Ukraine - illegal occupation of Ukrainian territory, denial of self-determination, breaches of international law, crimes against humanity, war crimes and so on. For that, the Taoiseach says we must have instantaneous sanctions.

Israel is indicted for all the same things, and not just for a year or two but for decades. Every day, we see evidence of the war crimes, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, the ongoing criminal, and it is criminal, siege of Gaza, the denial of the right of return to millions of refugees, and the apartheid policies where there is one law if a person is Jewish and another if a person is Palestinian. Never ever are sanctions imposed. They are resisted actively, and Israel is given favoured trade status; not sanctions and never a suggestion that maybe the Palestinians, who have the right under international law to militarily resist an illegal occupation, that maybe they should get military aid for that resistance. Was there ever such a suggestion? Of course not, and I would not advocate it by the way, but will the Taoiseach explain the contrast?

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