Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I wish to start by making some comments about the so-called humanitarian pause. Before going into the Israeli cabinet meeting last night, Benjamin Netanyahu said:

We are at war, and we will continue the war. We will continue until we achieve all our goals.

It is clear that in the minds of Netanyahu and the Israeli cabinet, this is a short-term pause and when it is over, the killing will resume. Their intention is to resume the killing of Palestinian men, women and children and to carry on with the genocide. For that reason, it is clear that what is needed is not a humanitarian pause but a complete and total ceasefire. If the bombardment stops for four days, then it should stop for good.

All the protests planned in this State and internationally for the weekend should go ahead. This is not a time for stepping back from those protests. The opposite is the case. In fact, now is precisely the time for people to step forward and double and treble the size of those protests to bring more pressure to bear for a total ceasefire.

It is worth asking the question as to why this pause happened. I believe the anti-war demonstrations that have taken place internationally are a factor in this, in particular the protests that have happened in the United States. Next year is an election year in the United States. Some 68% of the public polled in the US want a ceasefire. There have been millions on the streets there, the largest Palestinian solidarity demonstrations in US history. Those who say that protests do not have an effect and that they are only symbolic will see there this a small effect with regard to this, and it needs to become much bigger. I think there was also pressure from within Israel. The families of the hostages, with their "bring them home" campaign and their march on Jerusalem, put pressure to bear on the Israeli Government as well.

People will see on their television screens the release of hostages and will be happy to see that. Here in Ireland, people will be hoping for the release of Emily Hand. The positive feeling that the people watching get from seeing people being released will be absolutely, completely and cruelly tinged by the realisation that Netanyahu and his Cabinet intend to restart the killings within a matter of days.

On the question of hostages, I would make the point that all hostages, not some hostages but all hostages, should be released, and that includes the more than 5,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, as well as the nearly 3,000 Palestinians who have been taken into administrative detention without charge since 7 October and by the way, that includes 350 children. We found out yesterday that more than 14,000 Palestinians have been killed in the past six weeks, including more than 5,500 children, 33,000 people have been wounded, and more than 6,000 people are unaccounted for. This potentially means that the death toll is over 20,000, which would represent 1% of the population of Gaza having been wiped out in the space of 45 days. What is needed is not a humanitarian pause but a complete and total ceasefire, as well as an end to the root cause of the cycle of violence, which is a brutal, unjust and racist occupation of Palestinian lands.

In the five minutes remaining to me, I will make some points about Shannon Airport. More than 3 million US troops have passed through Shannon since 2002. This has happened under governments that have been led by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, and have been participated in by the Progressive Democrats, the Green Party and the Labour Party. It has become, in effect, a forward operating base for the US military. This year, up to the middle of November, 51,000 US troops have passed through Shannon. In his response this morning, the Tánaiste stated "The Government is clear that no airport in Ireland, whether Shannon or any other airport, is being used to transfer weapons to the Middle East or to any other war." How can the Minister say that? He is not in a position to give a guarantee.

I will give the Minister a second bite at the cherry on that because we have been told that there have been no inspections of US planes. The guarantee is that the US Embassy and the US authorities have said there are no weapons being carried on the planes, and the Government accepts their word. There are a hell of a lot of people in this country and elsewhere who would not accept that the word of the US on that. The State should carry out inspections and if the State does not carry them out, then the workers, with the backing of their trade unions, should carry out such inspections. With the genocide that is going on, that is an entirely justifiable policy for the workers to take. It would be in lock-step with the tradition of the Dunnes Stores workers, who boycotted fruit from apartheid South Africa in the 1980s and with the transport workers in Belgium and Catalonia, who are refusing to handle planes and ships carrying war matériel to Israel at present. Of course, taking a stand like that in Shannon would potentially be in breach of the Industrial Relations Act, the Thatcher-style anti-union legislation introduced by Bertie Ahern and his Government back in the day. However, the trade unions should openly state that they are prepared to defy that in order to challenge genocidal policies in the Middle East. Let us see whether there are weapons being carried on US planes. We might not be able to prove where they are bound for but if there are weapons on planes at the moment, can we exclude the possibility that quite a few of them would end up in Israel itself? The US is a major military backer of the Israel Defense Forces and the Israeli Government, even while it is pursuing a genocide.

As I have two minutes and 20 seconds left, I will finish on this point. I made reference earlier to the question of the campaign waged by the families of the hostages in Israel, the "bring them home" campaign. There is another important development in Israel that I want to bring to the attention of the House, which is the demonstration that was held in Tel Aviv last Saturday. It was an anti-war, anti-occupation demonstration. It was relatively small. There were hundreds of people in attendance but I believe it was hugely significant. It was the first anti-war, anti-occupation demonstration in Israel in the past six weeks. It took place despite those concerned having to go to the Israeli Supreme Court to stop attempts to block it from taking place. It happened despite the fact that the police vetted and confiscated placards and that the Israeli far right counterprotested and used a sound system to try to drown out the protestors. However, they got their message across and I want to let them know that their initiative was seen.

I salute the bravery of the people involved in organising it, including socialists from the Socialist Struggle Movement in Israel, which is part of the International Socialist Alternative, ISA. It was a small demonstration, with participants numbering in the hundreds. I sincerely hope that number grows to thousands and tens of thousands in the week ahead and that participants will join in with the worldwide global opposition to this war that we see on the streets of Dublin, New York, London, Paris and capitals in Middle Eastern countries. What we are seeing first and foremost is opposition to the war. I salute the bravery and resilience of the Palestinian people and the people of Gaza in standing up to this horrific bloodshed and genocide being inflicted upon them by the Israeli state and its backers in foreign governments.

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