Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

At the outset, I condemn outright the Hamas attack on innocent Israeli civilians on 7 October and extend my sympathies to the Israeli community in Ireland.

Israel’s response to these attacks has been totally out of proportion. Yes, it has an undeniable right to protect its civilians but it does not have the right to murder the civilian population of Gaza in retaliation. Hamas is a blight on world peace but right now so too are the Israeli Defense Forces. Mahatma Gandhi once said if you take an eye for an eye, very soon the whole world becomes blind. The adage rings true when one looks at what is unfolding in the Palestine Israel conflict now. The laying of siege on Gaza harks back to the medieval period yet it is happening in 2023 and it is being condoned, not condemned, by dozens of world leaders. How vile, how brutal, how barbaric to deny 2 million innocent civilians, 1 million of them children, access to food, water and electricity. The goal of this strategy is to eradicate Hamas but the people of Gaza are the front and centre victims. We have yet to establish who shelled the al-Ahli hospital but we do know an order was made last weekend by the Israeli Defense Forces for the hospital to be evacuated. A similar order was made 81 years ago to evacuate the Bersohn and Bauman hospital in the Warsaw ghetto. Most of the unwell, infirm and elderly people that stumbled out the door of that hospital were dead within months. Lessons must be learned from tragic world history, but have they? Civilians always pay the heaviest price in war. The genesis of this conflict is the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and an Israeli-led apartheid regime in a world where western democratic countries increasingly say “We have your back, Israel. We will always stand with you”. I am glad that the narrative in Irish politics is different and I am glad that the Tánaiste and colleagues in government have the moral fibre to both condemn the Hamas attacks and the brutal Israeli response. The Middle East needs a peace settlement not a flotilla of aircraft carriers and a stockpiling of heavy machinery.

Ireland, owing to our own tragic history spanning eight centuries, is probably best positioned to empathise and understand the struggle and suffering of the Palestinian people.

We must use our international voice, which is respected and listened to, to demand the dismantling of Hamas, the recognition of the Palestinian state and the protection of her people.

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