Dáil debates
Tuesday, 9 July 2024
Ceisteanna - Questions
Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements
4:55 pm
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source
The Taoiseach is absolutely right to condemn the barbaric character of Russia's actions in Ukraine. The almost certain missile attack against a children's hospital is an absolute outrage. The kidnapping of children and the illegal and unjustifiable invasion are barbaric. There is no question about it. Really, Putin is sort of reminiscent of Stalin in his barbarism. There is no doubt, therefore, that we should all join together in condemning it. What I also find sort of incredible is the Orwellian doublethink of many of the people who attend peace conferences such as this one and say all these justifiable things about Putin's horrors in Ukraine, while at the same time, many of those same leaders are providing weapons, arms and political support to the State of Israel as it does things that are every bit, if not more, horrific to the people of Gaza.
As we speak, Israel is issuing evacuation orders in Gaza city and other places. Tens of thousands of people are fleeing in terror as the Israelis continue their barbaric assault. The medical journal, The Lancet, is now estimating that the real death toll, when all the bodies buried under the rubble are uncovered and we look at the indirect deaths resulting from the hospital and civilian infrastructure being destroyed and the famine conditions existing, is that 186,000 Palestinians may have been killed by Israel's genocidal slaughter. Yet many of the people at that peace conference continue to provide weapons to the state that is doing this. It is absolutely shocking.
"Double standards" is too weak a term for it; it is Orwellian. It means that the people who talk about territorial integrity or the UN Charter are just hypocrites. They do not give a damn about the UN Charter, children or hospitals being hit. If they did, they would be as horrified at what is being done by Israel as we speak, and as has been done for nine months, against the hospitals, the schools and the water infrastructure and at the tens of people being slaughtered. When is this hypocrisy going to be called out? To be honest, the strength of language is not enough. I admit the Taoiseach's Government is better than many, but we are not taking the sort of action necessary in terms of imposing sanctions and calling out the shocking and obscene double standards of the western governments arming the Israeli genocide.
No comments