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

We should long ago have recognised the state of Palestine but the question is this. What state is the Taoiseach recognising? Is he simultaneously legitimising the ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine when he speaks of a two-state solution?

I find it ironic that people who are for a united Ireland, who call themselves republicans, who would never dream of endorsing a two-state solution in Ireland are for endorsing a two-state solution in Palestine. They are for the partition of Palestine forever after the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people in 1948. They are now being ethnically cleansed again by a state that has now shown itself capable of genocide. We have seen not only apartheid and ethnic cleansing but genocide and people still think this is some sort of normal state.

Would we have been in favour of two-state solution in apartheid South Africa? No. Would we have been in favour of two-state solution in occupied Vietnam? No. Would we have been in favour of a two-state solution in occupied Algeria? No. Are we in favour of a two-state solution in Ireland? No. However, we are in favour of a two-state solution in Palestine which legitimises ethnic cleansing. What about the Palestinian right to return under international law? Most of the people in Gaza who are currently being massacred have the right under international law to return to what is now called Israel. What will happen to them under the so-called two-state solution? In any event Israel has said it has no interest in a two-state solution. Everything the Israelis have done has shown that was a smokescreen; it is a deception. It is institutionalising apartheid. I would like to hear people say that we are for the dismantlement of apartheid, the dismantlement of illegal occupation, the right of Palestinians to return and for a free and independent Palestine where Jew, Christian and Muslim can live together as equals.

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