Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)

What we have witnessed in the last 24 hours is welcome but it is too late in some respects. There has been a division of opinion among member states in respect of this issue for quite some time. It is quite historic as the Deputy knows. Not everybody agrees with Ireland. We have a number of like-minded states, such as Slovenia and Spain, and Belgium to a lesser degree, which has a coalition government. There is a really broad strand of opinion in respect of the Middle East, some of it historic in respect of what happened in regard to the Shoah and so on. That has informed some countries' perspectives on this. In our view that historic prism has given Israel a latitude that has created the most appalling death and destruction. I hope now that in the context of the Israeli-EU Agreement, we could have a suspension of that pending the review.

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