Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies Connolly and Pringle for moving this motion, which we are glad to support to try, at this critical movement, to stop the deliberate, sly push by the Government to abandon our neutrality. In the short time available to me, let me make an obvious point. Let us look at the strength of language and the litany of adjectives used by Government spokespeople to describe the brutal and savage invasion of Ukraine by Putin and the immediate rush to say the Ukrainian people had the right to defend themselves against that savage imperialist onslaught. It was quite right to describe Putin's war in that way and to acknowledge the right of the Ukrainian people to defend themselves against an illegal and brutal invasion and occupation.

Let us contrast this, however, with the situation concerning the Palestinian people. They are oppressed, although we would not know this if we listened to the Government. The Israeli state is the oppressor. It is occupying the Palestinians' land. It has ethnically cleansed them from their land. It has denied them rights, including the right to return and the right to self-determination. For 75 years, the Israeli state has persecuted and oppressed the Palestinians, violated every law under international law and committed crimes against humanity and war crimes. Even in the face of the slaughter we are witnessing in Gaza, does the Government describe Israel's actions as "barbarism", "savage" and "murderous"? No, it does not. We are, instead, concerned. We think that maybe there should be a pause.

Why is this the case? It is because the Government wishes to cuddle up to NATO, the United States and the EU militarists. I do not have time to go through the extent to which Europe is arming and supporting Israel and European funding is underpinning Israel's ability to slaughter the Palestinians. If we were to look at the funding being given to Israeli universities to fund security and weapon innovation, however, we would see that billions of euro of European money are going to sustain the brutal, apartheid regime that is oppressing the Palestinians, and our Government is supporting all this.

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