Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I think everybody found it surreal and, I am sure, bloodcurdling - anybody with a humanitarian bone in their body - to hear the President of the US sitting beside his open fire, announcing his intention to carry out the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and announcing the intention of the US to get a slice of the action in Gaza for his real estate profiteering, with Netanyahu, the wanted war criminal, sitting beside him. It is critical that we do not allow the normalising of genocide, ethnic cleansing and increased oppression. This is the leader of the biggest capitalist nation in the world blithely saying these things. They have announced the preparedness of the oligarchs to ravage the world for profit and to walk over the globe as they see fit. It is not being called out either through spinelessness or through people waiting to see what the response of the people is. I think they have declared a war on human rights and democracy.

Three things are clear: we need to pass the occupied territories Bill; nobody whatsoever from this Dáil should go to the White House; and nobody should greenwash Trump and give him any flag or cover to hide what he stands for. Our Government and all political parties should make that clear. It is critical that we increase the opposition movement and the protest movement that has been the only saving grace on behalf of the Palestinian people, and I know the Palestinian people themselves will also resist. We must stop the use of Shannon by US troops and soldiers who are walking through there every day while genocide is being planned. There is absolutely no place for cowardice or for thinking President Trump does not mean what he says and that it will not actually be as bad. We have heard of the reported love-bombing that was the initial Government strategy to deal with him. He is a war criminal. He should not be dealt with.

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