Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is very hard to know where to start, considering we had a similar debate last week. It is true what the Tánaiste said, in that in the international community, Ireland is viewed as one of the most critical voices of Israeli aggression. When one lives in Ireland, one can only influence what one can with regard to the Government's response. Ireland may be going further than anyone else but that is not a very high bar, considering the moral and political collapse of any sort of decency that we, perhaps, would have previously expected from celebrated institutions and political entities such as the EU, US and UK. We have to constantly remind ourselves of this moral collapse, especially as it comes so soon after the uniformity of response to the Russian aggression in Ukraine. This is not about only speaking about our enemies; this is also about speaking about our supposed friends.

I call on any of us who have any influence with anybody who is cheerleading this to speak those uncomfortable words, not just in Europe but also in the US and the UK. What the Tánaiste said with regard to the UNRWA funding is fair enough. It is commendable but, at the same time, it should not really be questioned. What we are facing and witnessing is unprecedented, and is not going to stop. What is being cheerled and the bloodthirsty nature of the announcements from Israeli politicians really makes me wonder where and how it will end. They have no encouragement from anybody to end it because they have had no encouragement from anybody for more than 50 years to change tack. They have absolute support from many countries in the EU. They have absolute support in the UK and, as we know, in the US.

I speak about uncomfortable conversations because all bets are off on the international diplomacy scene here when it comes to this "conflict", as people are calling it. The word "conflict" gives the impression of two equals going at it. Let us call it what it is: it is a genocide. It is an absolute annihilation of a people. We can only assume that the ambition here is to settle the land and end Gaza as a residential territory for the Palestinian people who Israel has been smothering since 2005.

I will make this point again, and I made it last week. We in the Irish Labour Party have our responsibility to speak truth to power in the British Labour Party. I will be quite frank, and I said it last week. I have said it to the media today and I will repeat it here. Keir Starmer will not be welcome at any Labour Party event in Ireland considering the cowardice he has shown in the face of evil and genocide. He has not called for a ceasefire. His words were weak. Maybe he is reflecting on an issue of antisemitism in the British Labour Party but that is not excuse enough. It is not excuse enough for somebody who purports to be the leader of the United Kingdom and a potential prime minister. We expect better. He is wrong and he has to be called out for that.

I expect members of Fine Gael in the European People's Party to call out people like Ursula von der Leyen. A report from Naomi O'Leary of The Irish Timeslast week stated that Ursula von der Leyen and Roberta Metsola flew to Israel to show solidarity, right after the Israeli Minister of Defense Gallant ordered a complete siege on Gaza, including "no electricity, no food, no fuel". This quote was read out by the ICJ as plausible evidence of incitement to genocide - no electricity, no food, no fuel. That was from the Israeli Minister of Defense. How is a child supposed to survive with no electricity, no food or no fuel? The Israelis are engineering a famine. We know that of the 25,000 people who have been murdered, half of them are children, and the Israelis are not going to stop.

When it comes to the influence that we may have in the US, the Minister of State is going to have to get his head around how uncomfortable it is for Irish people to witness Irish Ministers going to the US and to the White House, and engaging in that sort of diplomacy in a kind of light-hearted manner with the administration that is funding this. It is easy for the Opposition to say they should not go but some indication will have to be given of what they and the Government are going to say. If Ministers were not to go, they would be congratulated by the Labour Party and we would support them in that. I acknowledge the relationship we have with the United States is a very long and valued one but if Joe Biden was to come here next week, we would not sit in these seats. We just would not be able to countenance welcoming Joe Biden, with all his Irish-American background, into this Chamber considering what he is funding, what his administration is weaponising and the genocide he is overseeing. We would not be able to do it, and others in the Dáil and representatives of political parties who intend to attend the White House reception need to reflect on their positions as well.

I applaud the statement by Colum Eastwood of the SDLP that he will not be there. That is the right approach.

All of these issues are incredibly emotional and incredibly difficult. I repeat that taking action is not just down to the Minister of State but to all of us. It is not just down to the Government; it is down to civil society, trade unions and the Irish people to make a determination of what we feel should be our ongoing relationship with Israel and how we can halt what it is doing. Its actions may come to an end. There may be a resolution, a ceasefire and diplomacy but this discussion will keep going because we will return to it until Israel is completely isolated as the rogue nation we now believe it to be. Many of us have considered it to be in that category for quite a long time. As I said here last week, until there is a complete and total diplomatic, economic, artistic and sporting boycott of everything Israeli, that country is not going to stop. I say that not because I want the destruction of the State of Israel, which I and the Labour Party do not. Others may want that but we do not. We must hold fast to the idea of the two-state solution, which has, of course, been completely ruled out by Netanyahu.

I am making a call for all of us to do what we can. In the case of the South African boycott that happened when I was a child, it was the women of Dunnes Stores who made the initial step in saying they would not handle the fruit that came from an apartheid nation. There is the same responsibility on all of us today. We must all call out what we see as right or wrong, as evil or as genocide. We are all trying to live in communities and bring up children. We all find ourselves turning off the television in case our children see the scenes from Gaza and wonder why there are bloodied children and where the parents of those children are. That is the world in which we are raising our children. They do not understand how this could be happening.

We shield our own children from this horror that is happening hundreds of miles way. Some people, unfortunately, cannot shield their children from it. It was stated eloquently in the House last week - I cannot remember by whom; it possibly was Deputy McDonald - that Israeli and US politicians are signing missiles, while Palestinian mothers are writing their children's names on their arms in order that they can be identified if they are found dead. That is the scale of the depravity, genocide and evil we are witnessing. We must support the South African case but we have to do more than that. We must end our relationship with Israel, not because we want that country to end but because we want its barbarism, evil, apartheid and murder to end.

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