Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am struck by the extraordinary double standards that the European Union displays and the Taoiseach seems to go along with when we look at the contrast between the way in which the Ukrainian situation is presented and the way in which the Palestinian situation is presented. It may just be a symbolic thing but tomorrow is Nakba, the anniversary of the catastrophe, as it is known to the Palestinians, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were ethnically cleansed, using extreme violence, in 1948. Millions of them are refugees and under international law are allowed back, but Israel has no intention of ever letting them back and has made that absolutely clear. We cannot even fly the Palestinian flag here in the Oireachtas, although we fly the Ukrainian flag.

At the European Council, we start with Ukraine, affirming absolute support for Ukraine against what is the brutal invasion by Putin, and then we come to Israel and Iran. There are immediate sanctions for Iran but, from what I hear, no mention of the attack by the Israelis on the Iranian consulate. I am not justifying bombing by anybody but just pointing to the double standards. There is no mention of sanctions against Israel for what the International Court of Justice says is a plausible genocide and most sentient people, looking at the horror that is now intensifying in Rafah and has gone on for the past seven months, would say is a genocide.

It is happy to impose sanctions on Russia and Iran but there are no sanctions on Israel despite the fact that it is probably - definitely, in my opinion - committing a genocide against the Palestinian people.

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