Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

To illustrate the difficulty the international community is in, this week members of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence held an informal meeting with commissioners from the UN commission of inquiry that is looking into human rights issues in Palestine and Israel. It published reports to the UN Human Rights Council and the General Assembly in which it is critical of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hamas and the Israeli regime. The fundamental difference is that of those three the Israeli Government is the only one that not only refuses to engage but refuses the UN commission access either to Palestine or Israel, and has actually embarked on an international propaganda exercise to discredit the very esteemed members of that commission.

If there is a situation where an Israeli Government that has preferential treatment as regards its trading relationships with the EU, as well as other entities, can simply ignore, prevent and obstruct the work of UN commissions of inquiry, does the Tánaiste agree we need to move beyond the very strong rhetoric into equally strong actions against that regime?

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