Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I commend the Social Democrats on this poignant motion. What we are seeing on our television screens every night is almost unbearable to watch, but you have to keep watching, because if you turn away, it will keep happening. The past 13 months have been exceptional in the absolute inhumanity of what is being done to the people of Gaza. The only parallel I can make in the politicisation of the world is the Vietnam War. In the Vietnam War, in the 1960s and 1970s, a huge generation became politicised. During that war, it is hard to believe that 2 million people from Vietnam and Cambodia were massacred. What makes a so-called country want to kill 2 million people? The only things I can think of are hatred and racism. That is the only logic of what is happening in Gaza today.

The facts are stark. In the past 13 months, we have witnessed the greatest concentration of armaments since the Second World War. The irony of that is that the Jewish people themselves suffered terribly under the Nazis in the Second World War. Now we are seeing a concentration of violence that we have never witnessed before. We acknowledge that this country has done better than other European countries but it has to do a lot better. The occupied territories Bill should have been passed by now. This is legislation that has been around since 2018, which is six years ago. How the Israeli ambassador is still in the country is beyond me. I know she is on gardening leave but we should tell her that she should stay on gardening leave in the Zionist state. She should never, ever be welcome in this country. There is a movement across this country and the world that says this cannot be tolerated because if it is tolerated then everybody's children will be next.

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