Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have an opportunity to speak in this very important debate. While many people in the House have said that this has come too late and should have come earlier, the fact is that it has come. It is the right decision and it had to be taken now, in view of the happenings over the past six or seven months. The situation was not started by the Israelis but it was continued by the Israelis. As someone who tried to use his small influence with both sides in the past, when I was Chairman of the European affairs committee, I invited the Israeli ambassador and the Palestinian chargé d'affaires to a meeting to discuss their various differences.

They did and they were amicable and respectful towards one another and the meeting went well. Then came Operation Cast Lead and everything was reversed. Then came the recriminations against the Israelis, including in this House. Then there was the isolation of the Israeli position and the reaction among the fundamentalists in Israel and we are where we are today as a result of those happenings combined. No one action or move by anyone was the total and absolute cause but things degenerated rapidly and that is what happens in a situation where nothing happens. The vacuum is filled by people who have no regard for peace, human life or democracy. This can happen on both sides and it has.

We should know about it in this country more than any other because we have had our own experiences in the past. As the Queen once said, it might have been better if some of the things we did to one another had not been done at all. When all is said and done, something needs to be left on which to build a peace process. I and several others are of the opinion that a platform was needed in the past number of years where the opposing sides could present their grievances. The United Nations should be that but for various reasons I will not go into, it was not seen in that way by the Israelis. The situation will still be fragile now. From here on in, we the outsiders in this House and in houses across Europe and the globe, must do everything possible to encourage the coming together of people who have been at one another's throats for thousands of years, not only hundreds of years, but for millennia, not decades. The fact remains that it must be worked on.

The recognition of the State of Palestine by three European governments on one day is important. It is an indication. One has to hark back to our own days in that situation when the leaders of this country went abroad to encourage recognition of the State of Ireland. It was very well done and it was seen as important then. Several people were sent to several parts of the globe. The result was that we got that kind of recognition at the end of the day. Terrible, unforgivable atrocities were committed by both sides up until very recently. However, at the end of the day there has to be some method of talking to one another, establishing bridges and trying to create the footpath that will lead to something better. The fact that it has been ignored for so long does not mean it is impossible. I remember meeting the Palestinians in Palestine, in various locations, and the Israelis in the past, as did several Members of this House. That led us to understand the distance between the two sides, their inability to trust one another and their suspicion of one another. That has to go if we are to move forward from where we are now.

It is reminiscent of the peace process in this country when the leading protagonists were arrayed against one another, as it were. At the beginning there was more emphasis on the differences between them, but eventually that led to the situation and the recognition that there was more in their common interests and the common good than could be ignored. At the end of the day, it was frivolously suggested that some of the protagonists had seen God. They had, impossible as it may have been to visualise. They saw that 30 years of appalling atrocities in this country on behalf of the people in pursuit of peace and a correct ideal had achieved nothing. The only thing it achieved was the death of everyone associated and some who were not associated at all and countless innocent victims, including children. We and they learned a lesson and they saw God. It is now time for the people across the globe in relation to the Palestinian-Israeli situation to see God as well and to recognise that what has gone on before is not acceptable. There is no sense in saying it is or suggesting that a certain amount is allowed in certain cases and retaliation is understandable. Retaliation, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, will only bring one thing, a lot of people with poor sight and no teeth. We should never allow ourselves to go down that road. Recrimination and retaliation are unacceptable. The time has come to put the building blocks together, to be reasonable towards one another, to recognise we come from different situations and to try to put in place the necessary measures that will lead to something better than we have looked at for the past 50 or 60 years and more.

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