Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

What response did the Tánaiste get from President Abbas on the election issue and on the holding of elections in Palestine?

One of the most disturbing things I have seen in recent times was the speech of Prime Minister Netanyahu to the United Nations, in which address he held up his view of the future that was a map of the Middle East. He said that with the new negotiations with Saudi Arabia, the extension of the so-called Abraham Accords, that this would be the look of the new Middle East. There was no state of Palestine. There was no notion that the Palestinian people could actually have their own state. They were simply obliterated from his vision of the future. In that context is it really worthwhile trying to pursue the notion of a two-state solution if the current Israeli regime is so dead against it? Can we take a stand by recognising the state of Palestine?

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