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

I hope and expect that there will be tens of thousands of people assembling in Parnell Square this Saturday at 1 p.m. to march in solidarity with the people of Gaza and Palestine as they face the horror being inflicted on them by the State of Israel. I will ask the Minister one of the questions they are going to be asking this Saturday. How many Palestinians does Israel have to massacre, how many atrocities does it have to commit and how much evidence that Israel is engaged in a genocidal attack on the people of Gaza and, increasingly, people in the West Bank does the Government need before it will do something and take any action whatsoever to sanction this murderous regime for the slaughter it is inflicting on thousands and thousands of Palestinians?

On 18 October, the Government proposed a motion talking about Israel's right to self-defence. At the time, we proposed an amendment and argued that Israel was not engaged in anything like self-defence but rather was continuing and accelerating a genocidal attack to reinforce its system of apartheid and occupation and its ongoing war crimes against, and ethnic cleansing of, the Palestinian people. At the time, we called for the expulsion of the ambassador, the prosecution of Israel for war crimes and other sanctions. We got seven votes. Last night, 55 Deputies voted to expel the Israeli ambassador, to sanction Israel and to refer it to the International Criminal Court for war crimes and genocide but the Government still voted against that motion.

Will the Minister explain to me what level of atrocity Israel has to commit, how many babies it has to murder, how many hospitals and houses it has to bomb and how many people it has to ethnically cleanse before the Government will think it is time to impose the sort of sanctions it was very quick to impose on Russia in response to Putin's invasion of Ukraine? Are Palestinian babies and lives less valuable than those of Ukrainians? Is that why the Government does not feel sanctioning Israel for the crimes it is committing is justified in the face of this slaughter? Will he please explain to me and to the thousands who have been on the streets and who will be on the streets again this Saturday how the Government can justify inaction in the face of slaughter and massacre?

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