Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

One international issue dominates the thoughts and concerns of most Irish people and of all right-thinking people across the European Union. The ongoing carnage in Gaza is unconscionable and horrifying. It is now clear to the entire world that the Israeli Government feels it can act with complete impunity and exactly as it wishes. A country that Ireland regards as a member of the community of nations has decided that it is not bound by international law, the rules and conventions of war or even the basic moral constraints of humanity.

The shocking and savage attack on Israel by Hamas on 7 October has not been responded to with a lawful and measured defence of the people of Israel. Rather, it has unleashed a genocidal onslaught on the entire Palestinian population of Gaza that given rise to the deaths of 25,000 people, the majority of whom were women and children. More Palestinians are being killed in the occupied West Bank. As we speak, women and children there are dying.

We have rightly tried to build an international point of pressure to demand an immediate ceasefire and a stop to this killing. It is abundantly clear that Israel will not listen to any external voice, not even to that of the Government of the United States, on which it depends for arms and support. I refer to the utterances of Prime Minister Netanyahu claiming Israeli security control from the River Jordan to the sea. A similar utterance was deemed a terrorist statement requiring arrest and prosecution when it was chanted by Palestinian supporters at London protests.

The world must act or a conflict will engulf more and more states and more and more lives. The imposition, and I use that word advisedly, by the world community of a two-state settlement must now be pursued overtly. The South African initiative at the International Court of Justice is one that merits our support. I think that is the real view of most people in this country, and we need to be brave in making it crystal clear that not only do we support it but that we will offer whatever legal, moral and financial support to the case that we possibly can.

I wish to briefly mention Ukraine and the package of supports for the country that so far has not been given. Those of us who have had the opportunity to visit Ukraine since the dreadful attack on that country by Russia know the scale and viciousness of the onslaught. It is again unconscionable that vital support for the very maintenance and existence of that country is being blocked at the European level by one country. This situation needs to be resolved. I hope the Taoiseach or the Minister of State will give us firm assurances that this will happen in February and that this support will be forthcoming. The opening of accession discussions with Ukraine and Moldova is certainly to be welcomed. That is our view.

My final comment relates to migration. This will be a significant issue in the forthcoming European elections. The rise of the right is frightening. The utterances of the leaders of the Alternative für Deutschland party, who, basically, talked about mass deportations, including of German citizens deemed to be non-German, have echoes of the darkest days of Germany's past. There is a fear that those sentiments will be echoed across many European states. We need to be clear and robust in our defence of the basic principles upon which the European Union was founded in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War and the genocidal assault on people because of their religion or race at the time.

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