Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I would love to be sitting here today for post-European Council statements and talking about the plethora of different issues I would like to discuss in respect of migration, the supports we should be providing to those seeking sanctuary, accession candidates, artificial intelligence policy and rule of law violations.

How can we all step back from the realisation that in the past few days we have discussed the fact that a genocide is taking place - as most of us vehemently believe - in the shadow of negligence, at best, on the part of the European Union, and with the support of the United States and the UK?

It is regrettable that only today are we discussing the conclusions reached at an EU Council meeting that took place more than a month ago. Since that meeting in December, 7,000 more Palestinians have been killed as a result of Israel's barbaric actions, bringing the death toll to more than 25,000, including 83 journalists who were marked for assassination and almost 150 UN staff, at the last count. A further 45,000 people have been wounded, many of them children who have suffered life-altering injuries leading to amputation, mainly without anaesthetic. Since 24 December, when world leaders convened in Brussels to discuss the conflict, women and young girls have had to resort to using tent materials in place of sanitary products, thereby risking toxic syndrome.

Since December, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reaffirmed his genocidal belief that the state of Palestine should not exist, yet we have the conclusions of the EU Council meeting a month ago which outline moves to prevent the deterioration of slaughter. First, the Council stated that it condemned Hamas in the strongest possible terms. Second, it recognised Israel's right to defend itself in line with international law and international humanitarian law. This statement was only this week shamefully walked back by Germany, despite all the instances to which I have referred. The Council also expressed its grave concern about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza. The European Union is acting as if this deteriorating humanitarian situation is a consequence of some weather pattern as opposed to Israel's direct slaughter of people. Israel is a country with which the EU has a trade agreement into which human rights aspects built in. Those aspects are being neglected. I find it difficult to give legitimacy to any other policy we should be discussing as that continues.

Hamas was extensively and unconditionally been condemned by all at the meeting, a condemnation with which all present agreed - and continue to agree - but the priorities of the Council appear beyond tone deaf to the point of cruelty. When the Council convened, 18,000 Palestinians, the majority of them women and children, had been killed - bombed and shot indiscriminately as part of a genocide and ethnic cleansing project. However, the Council treats those in Gaza as an afterthought. The Gazans - the Palestinian people - are not even mentioned. The only reference is to the sterile semantics of the humanitarian situation.

Worse still is the fact that second priority of the Council, after condemning Hamas, is to recognise Israel's right to defend itself. Israel, a military behemoth backed by the US war machine, needs its right reiterated while it wipes out an entire population, but the Council makes no mention of Palestinians' equal right to defend themselves. It is sickening that the Government was at that time making equal statements of priority. Sadly, very little has changed. At the meeting, the Council welcomed its 12th package of sanctions against Russia in respect of its illegal invasion of Ukraine. This is hypocrisy so brazen that it leads one to believe that the biases present in Europe simply must extend beyond those of colour, creed and otherness

Coming back to the present, what this debate should have been centred around began by discussing Russia's invasion, a subject entirely deserving of attention. However, the situation in Gaza and the West Bank is at breaking point. It cannot be an afterthought. The Council's finding describes Israel's slaughter of innocents as a catastrophe. Yet again, nameless and blameless.

The position the Government is taking is absolutely out of sync with that of the Irish people. The Minister of State will see that later this evening, when it is expected that thousands of people will again take to the streets, braving storms to do so, to ask that we take action. Today, the debate centred around aligning ourselves with the case South Africa has taken before the ICJ or having the courage to go beyond that and initiate our own proceedings. I would argue that we should initiate our own proceedings and look to our foreign policy achievements. As the Minister of State will be aware, in 2022 Ireland not only ratified but initiated a pact on the use of large munitions in urban warfare and got 82 countries to sign up to it. The Minister of State may as well rip that pact up. As I stated, what we are witnessing in Gaza is obliterating not only people and innocents, it is also obliterating any semblance of goodness, foreign policy achievement or statesmanship. The old orders are being annihilated and the Government is standing back and giving the illusion of statesmanship as it allows that to happen.

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