Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)

This starts and ends with Benjamin Netanyahu. For many years, Netanyahu and his regime propped up Hamas at the expense of Abbas and the Palestinian Authority in order to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and nobody has done more to undermine the State of Israel than Benjamin Netanyahu. Finally, we are seeing a shift - belatedly - in the position of the international community, with the exception of Ireland. Judgment is coming and not just for the perpetrators but for the enablers of this too. I am ashamed of the response of the West, with a few notable exceptions, on this. Germany, led at the time by a supposed centre left Chancellor, was responsible for 30% of the arms that were imported into Israel between 2019 and 2023. The British Prime Minister, a Labour prime minister, turned around and said it was acceptable in 2023 to suspend food, water and electricity to Gaza. I am ashamed of that as a Labour TD and I am ashamed as well to be European because of the response of the European Commission and the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.

I acknowledge the work which the Tánaiste and the Government have done but we in Labour implore them to do more. This is the largest orphan crisis in history. More than 15,000 children have been murdered.

Finally, the use of propaganda by the Israeli regime no longer washes. This is the greatest crime of our time and we are seeing it on Instagram, on TikTok and on our television screens. However, this was foretold from the start. Israel said it would do this. This is not just a humanitarian crisis. It is an illegal occupation and a resulting genocide. Israel deserves to be a global pariah, and not today or yesterday. The fact of the matter is that to protect Israel's colonial enterprise in Palestine the world became complicit in the forced displacement of Palestinian refugees. Wherever Israel decided to forcibly displace Palestinians, the international community by and large funded, facilitated, armed and welcomed it.

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