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

I also welcome the Palestinian ambassador, other members of the Palestinian community and activists to the Gallery. I welcome, in particular, Zak Hania, his wife Batoul and their children. I am delighted Zak escaped the horror of what Israel has been inflicting on the people of Gaza, which continues as we speak, as men, women and children are slaughtered by this genocidal regime. This day of Palestinian state recognition is the result of the endless and heroic resistance of the Palestinian people and the enormous protests and mobilisations of people across this country and the world. It is that resistance and protest that has brought us to this day. It should not have taken seven months of a genocidal massacre being inflicted on the people of Gaza, with 35,000 people slaughtered, 15,000 children, Gaza destroyed and famine conditions imposed on the entire population for us to get to this moment. The horror of the past seven months is a direct result of the impunity that has been granted to Israel by the United States and the European Union, including this State, for failing to impose sanctions on a regime that has been guilty of ethnic cleansing, occupation, apartheid, the siege of Gaza and systematic ongoing brutal murderous oppression of the Palestinian people for decades. All of them - the EU and the US - have the blood of Palestinians on their hands for failing to rein in this rogue regime. Symbolic recognition of the Palestinian state, while it is a welcome step forward, will not end the horror of what Israel is willing to inflict on the Palestinian people unless the succour, support, arms, weapons, political support and trade relations the EU and US continue to extend to a regime capable of this horror, end. Is it now not obvious that there is no atrocity Israel is not willing to commit? It will do any horror to the Palestinian people. In the short time available, I have to challenge the constant mantra of a two-state solution. We all want a ceasefire, peace and an end to this horror, whether Palestinians, Jewish people, Christians or people of no religion. Is it not obvious now that the Israeli regime is not interested in any of those things? It was built on the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians in 1948. It has been sustained every year for decades and decades by ethnic cleansing, murderous occupation and apartheid.

That is not the product of this or that government. It is written into the laws and constitution of the Israeli state. The former Taoiseach, Deputy Leo Varadkar, was absolutely right - I wish he had said this when he was Taoiseach - that systematic apartheid operates in this regime. Will we say it is okay to continue with an apartheid system and that it is okay to continue to deny millions of Palestinians the right to return, which they have under international law? A two-state solution will not give them the right to return. It will not dismantle the system of apartheid. Apartheid has no place in the civilised world. The Palestinian refugees - all of them - have the right to return under international law, and the people who are occupied have the right to resist. Those who defend apartheid have no rights under international law. Those who defend or enforce occupation have no rights under international law. Only the people who are occupied have the right to resist and they have the right to dismantle that regime. What we need to do is do what was done to apartheid South Africa and dismantle this occupation and this regime that is capable of genocide. We need sanctions, as was done with apartheid South Africa. I hope this will be the first step towards that but the people will have to lead because we know Governments have failed to do so until now.

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