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

It is a fair question. He will not agree with the answer but I will give him one: there are differences. Ukraine, for a start, is a European country. It is a EU candidate country. It is an established recognised independent state, recognised by Ireland. It is a democratic state. It is one that upholds the human rights of its citizens. Also, Russia's expansion and imperialism does not just threaten Ukraine. It threatens Moldova and the Baltic states. President Putin has been very clear that he laments the fall of the USSR and that does not just threaten Ukraine. It threatens other parts of Europe too. While there are parallels with the situation in Palestine, it is not the exact same. The history is different. Israel was established by UN mandate. The Arab state that was also established by UN mandate was rejected by other Arabs and other Arab states. Of course, we should never forget that refugees went in both directions. It is terrible what happened to Palestinians in the Nakba being thrown out of their homes and forced to become refugees in surrounding countries and on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. But we should never forget that massive Jewish populations in Egypt, Baghdad and Syria were also dispossessed.

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