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

Why did Simon Harris not say yesterday to the United States, "Stop arming a genocide. Stop giving weapons to people to commit genocide." Even now, the Tánaiste will not use the word "genocide". He will not say "They're committing genocide", even though the world is saying it and it is obvious they are committing it.

The Tánaiste is still failing to distinguish between the oppressor and the oppressed. When the Vietnamese fought back against the American occupation, they did some nasty things, but they were the oppressed and had the right to fight the oppressor. When the Algerians fought the occupation of their country, they did some pretty nasty things but the French were the colonisers and oppressors while the Algerians were those fighting back. Who is the oppressor and who is the oppressed in the context of Palestine? The answer is Israel is the oppressor. The Israelis are occupying, committing genocide and perpetrating apartheid, not the Palestinians. Why the Tánaiste keeps creating this equivalence, I do not understand. It misrepresents the nature of this conflict. There would be no Palestinian armed resistance if it were not for the siege of Gaza, apartheid, illegal occupation and ethnic cleansing. It would not exist. Why does the Tánaiste not say that clearly, call out those responsible and, in the case of the United States, those who continue to enable this oppressive, brutal and genocidal regime?

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