Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

notes that:

— nearly 100,000 Palestinians have been killed, reported missing or wounded in Gaza since Israel began its military operation three months ago;

— among this number are nearly 25,000 people who have been confirmed dead, two thirds of whom are women and children;

— 85 per cent of the population has been displaced, mostly to areas that have faced repeated bombardment from Israel by land, air and sea;

— Israeli missiles have targeted schools, universities, hospitals, United Nations (UN) facilities, refugee camps, places of worship, and critical civilian infrastructure like sanitation and communication facilities;

— Israel has dropped hundreds of 2,000-pound bombs which have a lethal blast radius of 365 metres, equivalent to 58 soccer fields in area, in densely populated residential areas in Gaza;

— as far back as 10th November, 2023, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned: "In Gaza, nowhere and no one is safe";

— according to Save the Children, every day since 7th October, 2023, more than 10 children have lost one, or both, legs in Gaza;

— the healthcare system has collapsed and operations, like amputations and caesarean sections, are being performed without anaesthetic;

— according to Human Rights Watch, the Israeli government is using starvation as a weapon of war and deliberately depriving civilians of the "resources necessary for daily existence" – food, water and medical supplies;

— according to UN Secretary General, António Guterres, 80 per cent of the hungriest people in the world are now in Gaza and more than one million people are starving;

— lack of clean water, inadequate sanitation, malnutrition and the collapse of the healthcare system is causing a public health disaster of unfettered epidemic and contagious disease among displaced Palestinians; and

— on 5th January, 2024, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, said: "Gaza has simply become uninhabitable";

further notes that:

— senior Israeli government officials, including the Prime Minister, President and Minister of Defence, have repeatedly made statements of genocidal intent;

— as far back as 16th November, 2023, UN experts highlighted "evidence of increasing genocidal incitement" against Palestinians and expressed profound concern about the "failure of the international system to mobilise to prevent genocide"; and

— South Africa has initiated proceedings against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide ("the Genocide Convention");

agrees that:

— Ireland ratified the Genocide Convention in 1976;

— under Article 1 of the Convention, State parties to the Genocide Convention have an obligation to take measures to prevent genocide;

— no armed attack on a State’s territory, even a heinous attack involving a criminal atrocity like the attack by Hamas on Israel, and the taking of hostages, on 7th October, 2023, can ever justify, or provide a defence to, breaches of the Genocide Convention;

— Ireland has previously acted on its obligation under Article 1, filing an intervention in support of a case taken by Ukraine against Russia under the Genocide Convention in 2022;

— writing in the Irish Independent on 19th January, 2024, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheál Martin TD, outlined the circumstances in which Ireland would intervene in the South African case against Israel at the ICJ:

"Once the court has issued its decision in relation to provisional measures, we will analyse this carefully and consult with other like-minded partners, as well as with South Africa.

This analysis and consultation will take place alongside a rigorous analysis of the multiple legal aspects of this case by the Department of Foreign Affairs, in consultation with the Attorney General. Once this is completed, the Government will take a decision whether to intervene in this case."; and

— while the Irish State waits for the ICJ’s decision on preliminary measures to begin this consultation and legal analysis, an average of 250 Palestinians are being killed in Gaza every day by Israel; and

calls on the Government to take its obligations under the Genocide Convention seriously and support South Africa in its efforts to stop a genocide in Gaza by intervening in the case at the ICJ as a matter of urgency and at the earliest possible opportunity.

I note that the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs is not here this morning. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine is taking the debate. It is unfortunate that the Tánaiste is not only unwilling to act, he is also seemingly unwilling to listen. On Sunday, he was asked about this motion on RTÉ and started by saying that Israel has to be held to account. Let us count the ways that this Government has held Israel to account for its slaughter in Gaza. For three months, the Social Democrats have asked the Government to lobby for trade sanctions against Israel at EU level. The EU is Israel's largest trading partner, so trade sanctions would hurt. Ireland could advocate for this at EU level but that has been ruled out repeatedly. This is because, according to the Taoiseach, if you go too far out on a limb, you lose influence.

Not only is there no prospect of trade sanctions but, to the best of my knowledge, the Government never even raised the issue in Brussels.

Withdrawing the diplomatic status of the Israeli ambassador is another way Israel could have been held to account. The Social Democrats put down a motion in the Dáil in November asking the Government to do that. We did not take that step lightly, but at that stage more than 10,000 Palestinians had been slaughtered in just a month and senior officials in the Israeli Government were talking about wiping Gaza off the face of the earth, so we felt it was appropriate to send a strong signal to Israel that Ireland opposes its actions. The Government refused to do that also. The Social Democrats then asked the Government to make a referral to the International Criminal Court, and to investigate whether members of the Israeli Government and military have committed war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity in Gaza. It refused to do that as well.

The Government has even refused to act when it comes to its own legislative agenda – something that is entirely within its control. We have repeatedly asked the Government to enact the occupied territories Bill and the Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill as a matter of urgency. Doing that would penalise economic activity in the occupied territories. It would not hurt as much as EU trade sanctions but it would at least be something - some small way of holding Israel to account, and leading by example. However, the Government also refused to do that. When the Government says Israel has to be held to account, who exactly does it think is going to do that? It does not look like it is going to be the Irish Government.

Every time this Government has been asked to follow its words with actions and hold Israel to account, it has refused to do so. Does the Minister believe that holding Israel to account is someone else's responsibility? The death toll in Gaza is now at more than 25,000 – and this Government is still taking a wait-and-see approach. After 10 p.m. on Monday last, we heard that the Government intended to scrap its own Dáil business yesterday afternoon and debate its own motion on Gaza. I thought that was great. Surely, given the dramatic fashion in which this motion was being rushed to the Dáil, it would contain something concrete. This would be the motion that finally tells us how this Government intends to hold Israel to account. I thought it would contain some new commitment and tangible support for the Palestinian people, but it did not. It was just a restatement of everything we have heard from the Government before. The question of supporting South Africa's case under the genocide convention at the International Court of Justice, ICJ, has been firmly kicked to touch. We are told the Government will strongly consider an intervention in the South African case, but only after the preliminary ruling has been made and after South Africa files its substantive case. That, as I am sure the Minister knows, could take months.

Meanwhile, an average of 250 Palestinians are being killed every day. We do not need to wait for preliminary judgments and subsequent assessments to indicate our support. I am sure the Government knows that. Other countries are certainly not waiting for a judgment to indicate their opposition. Germany, the US and the UK have dismissed South Africa's case out of hand. Germany has already indicated that it will be intervening at the ICJ in support of Israel. It does not need to wait for the preliminary ruling, so why does the Government? It is a question that the Tánaiste needs to answer.

When Russia invaded Ukraine and later attacked civilian infrastructure there, the Tánaiste was quick to label its actions as genocide. He wrote on Twitter that Russia's horrific attack on a railway station was "further evidence of the barbaric nature of Russia's war on Ukraine. This is genocide. And those responsible must be held to account." The Russians, of course, were rightly held to account for their brutal invasion of Ukraine. To name just some of the serious consequences that flowed from that invasion, trade sanctions were almost immediately put in place across the western world, travel visas were cancelled and bank accounts were frozen.

Israel has faced none of those consequences. It is quite the opposite. We have the Americans rushing to provide the Israelis with an infinite supply of bombs to drop on Palestinian civilians and Germany claiming that the attacks are proportionate and in line with international humanitarian law. Even the language the Government uses about this matter is different. I have searched but I cannot find any reference to the Tánaiste describing the slaughter in Gaza as genocide in the way he did regarding Ukraine.

This is despite the enormous death toll, the tens of thousands who have been maimed, the collapse of the healthcare system, the outbreak of famine and the fact that the UN is now warning that Gaza has been rendered uninhabitable. If this is not a blatant double standard, then could the Minister explain the discrepancy? Clearly, "genocide" is not a word that the Government wants to use in relation to Israel, at least not until the preliminary ruling from the ICJ gives it some cover. Last week, the Taoiseach explained why this may be the case. He said it was uncomfortable for him to accuse Israel of genocide given the Holocaust that the Jewish people suffered, but that misses the point entirely of the genocide convention. It was adopted by the UN in 1948 as a result of the Holocaust - to ensure that never again would any person face an atrocity like that suffered by the Jewish people. It should also be pointed out that our motion does not ask the Government to make a determination of genocide. It asks it to simply live up to its obligations under the genocide convention, which Ireland belatedly signed up to in 1976, namely, to recognise the risk that a genocide is being committed in Gaza, and to act to stop it.

Article 1 of the convention obliges Ireland to do this; not just to punish genocide, but to act to prevent it. The ICJ has previously explained what this obligation entails, by stating:

A State's obligation to prevent genocide, and the corresponding duty to act, arise at the instant that the State learns of, or should normally have learned of, the existence of a serious risk that genocide will be committed.

I do not think anyone in government can claim to be blind to the risk of genocide in Gaza, or is it the case that the Government require more death, more suffering, more disease, more starvation and more devastation before it acts?

Having spoken of holding Israel to account, it is time that this Government did so. I ask that the Government would support this motion, which has one singular call, namely, for the Government "to take its obligations under the Genocide Convention seriously and support South Africa in its efforts to stop a genocide in Gaza by intervening in the case at the ICJ as a matter of urgency and at the earliest possible opportunity." This is an opportunity for accountability and to try to prevent genocide. It is not just the Social Democrats who think the Minister should seize this opportunity. The Government has a legal and moral obligation to act and to do so now.

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