Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Social Democrats for this excellent motion being brought to the House. I will start with a quote, "[We all know the European] Union was ... founded as a peace project." That statement was made less than a year ago in this Chamber by Ursula von der Leyen, right there between where the Minister of State and the Acting Chair are sitting, where she proudly extolled the virtues of the European Union as a force for peace and for good, before going on to describe the virtues, as she saw it, of the Irish people. One of those was where she spoke of Ireland knowing what it is to struggle for the right to exist. How absolutely hollow those patronising words ring now, given the response of Ursula von der Leyen - the most senior figure in the European Union - to what is going on in Gaza.

The moral bankruptcy of the European Union has made me absolutely ashamed to feel European and ashamed of the European Union. Where do the limits of the European Union's desire for peace end and what defines them? Is it the borders of Europe? Is it the slightly further borders of the European neighbourhood, which brings in the likes of Ukraine? Does it come down to the colour of your skin, your ethnicity, the religion you practise or what is traditionally practised in your country? That is because there are limits to it and we are seeing where those limits are in what is happening in Gaza. Including in this motion, we have unequivocally condemned the attacks of 7 October and we mourned with the innocents who lost their lives that day. We knew what was coming because Israel and Netanyahu said it. Our own President acknowledged that Israel had stated it was going to repeatedly break international law. That is what has happened from that date to this moment with the destruction of Gaza and the increased killings on the West Bank.

The withdrawal of diplomatic status is not something I would instinctively support but we have been left with no choice but to support it when it comes to the Israeli ambassador here. It started with her accusing our President, Michael D Higgins, of spreading misinformation when he was just repeating the facts of what the Israeli ambassador's own Government was saying, and what it has gone on to do. They have offered nothing. They have criticised the United Nations Secretary General again for stating the facts of the situation and the facts of the death and destruction which is being wrought on the people of Gaza. We can engage at a ministerial and political level to achieve as best we can with what we need to achieve with regard to Irish citizens, hostages and our troops over there on peacekeeping missions, but the position of the Israeli ambassador is such that it can no longer exist with diplomatic sanction in Ireland. That sanction must be withdrawn and the Israeli ambassador must be sent home.

It will have implications but this gives us as Irish people, going back to our so-called virtues, to our struggle and to our understanding, a unique perspective within Europe to cut through many of the things we see. We cut through Islamaphobia, through antisemitism, and through a great deal based on our own experience, and we highlight and can identify what is right and what is wrong. The 7 October attacks were wrong and every attack from that day to this moment and beyond are also wrong. There is the killing of innocents, not allowing aid or medicine in, seven children overnight dying for the lack of oxygen, the lack of the air we breathe, and 137 attacks on healthcare facilities since 7 October in Gaza. This multitude of wrongs and evils being carried out by the Israeli Government must end.

We have the perspective with which to call it back and this motion does that very strongly. It is not a reckless motion and is pushing our position out to where it should be and where the Irish people want it to be. We have to push back against the groupthink within the European Union which is supporting Israel in its actions. There are 30 years of ignorance towards a peaceful solution. That is what the last call in this motion is. After the call for the withdrawal of diplomatic status, it calls for working with the UN and the European Union for a path to peace in the region. We are complicit in not pursuing that in the past 30 years, in allowing Hamas to do what it does but also in allowing the right in Israel to take over, to increase the level of illegal settlements in the West Bank, to continue the siege of Gaza for all of those decades, and to foment in Gaza a situation which only serves the right and the politics of Netanyahu in Israel, which he knows will be backed up by the Americans and by the orthodoxy in the European Union. Where is this going to end when we have no peace process and no desire for one? It is going to end with the killing of Gazans and of Palestinians, and with no prospect of peace.

The one thing which is always thrown at us from the US and from the EU, in particular, is that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and it must be defended on those grounds. I will set that bit aside for a second. If Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, then the responsibility on democracies, particularly powerful democracies with huge militaries, is to act in accordance with international law, to lead by example, and to promote peace and not destruction and violence. Israel has not done that in any way, shape or form. It is a shame to the word "democracy". That is not how democracy acts. When you have that military might and continue daily to use that to subjugate millions of people, and then, after a heinous attack, impose that military might to attack hospitals, kill journalists and kill children and thousands and thousands of people, then you no longer deserve to be called a democracy or to pursue so-called democratic values. We in Ireland need to be stronger and we need to be where this motion is calling us to be, because that is where the Irish people are and that is what is right. What is happening over there is wrong. It is pure destruction and it is pure evil. We fully support every aspect of this motion to send a message to Israel that we need to refer it to the International Criminal Court. We need to remove the Israeli ambassador for everything she has done over the past month, and we need to be proper advocates for a permanent peace in the region, however long that takes and however hard that is. That is the role of Ireland and is the intent of this motion. This Government, by denying that, is letting the Irish people down and, more importantly, is letting the people of Gaza and Palestine down.

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