Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank my colleague, Deputy Brady, for this Bill. I welcome the ambassador, H.E. Dr. Wahba Abdalmajid, to the Chamber. Deputy Brady has already spoken on the detail of the Bill and I will address its essence, in a week when the catastrophe, the Nakba, inflicted on the Palestinian people by the Israeli Government and its supporters is commemorated. This week is also the anniversary of the ratification of the Sykes-Picot agreement, which has affected the history of the Middle East and all who live there ever since. The conflicts, the displacements, the dispossession, the injustice, the inhumanity and the needless deaths continue right up to this day, as we consider this Bill. Today, I name in honour a four-year-old boy, Tamim Daoud, and his parents, Mohammed and Lina. Tamim died because of a panic attack caused by the Israeli bombing of his neighbourhood. It woke him from his sleep. According to his parents, his little heart could not take the noise, the vibration and the fear. The Israel Defense Forces, IDF, and the government that commands them, frightened this little boy to death. He is one of hundreds of children whose lives have been taken by the IDF. Even if we disregard every other atrocity, that alone is a reason Irish investment has no business doing business in the occupied territories. The ISIF has invested Irish taxpayers' money - the people's money - in nine companies operating within illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. Given the ongoing occupation, the treatment of the Palestinian people and the murder of their children - eight in this latest round, as I understand it, and counting, knowing the IDF - the razing of schools just last week and the open-air imprisonment of a people, the use of Irish citizens' money in these companies is unethical and unacceptable. When one says something is unacceptable, one does not accept it. Given our history, no Irish company should profit from this illegal occupation, this dehumanisation of an entire people and this injustice, cruelty and destruction. The Palestinian people are very grateful for Ireland's support. It means so much to them. I ask the Minister of State to withdraw his amendment and give them hope, because when we dignify the people of Palestine and their cause, we dignify our ancestors and ourselves.

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