Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

In Gaza, 25,000 individual human beings have been murdered since the horrendous attacks by Hamas on 7 October. This is the equivalent of every man, woman and child in a large Irish town such as Tralee being killed. More than 10,000 children have been killed in those attacks. That is the equivalent of 416 classrooms of innocent children murdered in that time. Women and children have been the main victims of Israel's war, with more than 16,000 of them killed. It is estimated that two mothers have been killed every hour since the start of the war. Journalists and humanitarian staff have been killed in massive numbers. Israel's war has been completely and purposefully indiscriminate in recent months. In an area half the size of County Louth, Ireland's smallest county, 1.9 million people are now displaced and without homes. Close to 1 million of them are women and girls who are seeking shelter and safety. Schools and hospitals have been vaporised and the rules of war have been completely dumped by the Israel Defence Forces. People are purposefully being deprived of safety, medicine, healthcare and shelter. By its own admission, Israel has been preventing food and water from reaching more than 1 million people in the area. This is shocking. We have seen a famine made by the Israeli Government famine start to spread throughout the statelet.

On any examination of the evidence, it is impossible to say this is accidental. All the evidence shows this human terror is, in fact, the purposeful collateral damage of the Israeli Government. There is no other way to view the actions that are unfolding in Gaza. This horror is being manufactured by Israel. For all of this, Israel is responsible. Collective punishment on a biblical scale is happening in our time. The shocking thing is there has been no accountability for it. The shocking element is that most of the West has stood on its hands. Indeed, the US, the EU and Britain have given Israel a blank cheque to do what it is doing. This is a deep stain on the US, the EU and Britain. That they have lost any moral authority in the context of future of international conflicts is obvious. Now we are seeing the spread of the war to other countries, such as Yemen. There have been direct attacks on Iranian army personnel in Syria and attacks in south Lebanon have continued.

The Government, too, has a responsibility. It has outsourced its foreign policy in this regard to the EU. There is no legal responsibility on the Government to outsource its foreign policy on this matter to the EU. Under the EU treaties, foreign policy is still a national competency. Why has the Government outsourced its policy, especially in light of the fact that the EU has grossly distorted our foreign policy message? It might have been understandable for the Government to have decided to collectively work with the EU if the EU's policy on this matter was in some way reflective of our objectives. However, the EU has grossly distorted this in the context of giving a blank cheque to the Israeli Government. Ursula von der Leyen went to the US and said the EU stood with the US in supporting Israel's right to wage war so horrendously on Gaza.

We have had words from the Government, and I welcome some of the words from Government TDs today, but we need actions. Words are not making a squat of difference in this matter. We need to recognise the state of Palestine. That is a must for the Government. We need to support the case of South Africa. We need to leverage the special relationship we have with the US, which is the most powerful player in all of this. When the initial phases of the conflict broke out, the US moved aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean to underline its support for what was about to commence. We are not leveraging our special relationship with the US in any way whatsoever. One of the reasons we are not doing so is because this country has commercial interests in all this. It is hypocritical to say otherwise. The Government fawned over the Chinese Premier last year despite the horrendous treatment of the Uyghur population in the Xinjiang province. It is amazing that the Government has been so selective in terms of the delivery of foreign policy in the past five years - selective because of commercial interests. That is one of the reasons the Government is not properly leveraging its relationship with the US Government on this matter. It also needs to stand up to the disastrous EU policy. It is horrendous that EU leaders have got away with the language they have used in recent months.

Obviously, Ireland is a small country. Our effect on international affairs can be quite small, but we have a competency in the context of peace processes. We are internationally recognised as an honest broker. We should have capitalised on the statements from the EU some months ago, when it sought to create an international peace conference and force Israel to participate in that conference. In fact, when Israeli diplomats were asked whether Israel would participate in that international peace conference, they stated they had no detail and it was a nebulous offer from the EU. This country could have created that detail, however. We could have, at least, prevented excuses from coming from Israel in respect of peace. There must be a peaceful political resolution to this but that will not happen until the blank cheque is pulled from Israel, the international community decides to tolerate it no more and the Government stands up with action rather than words.

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