Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)

Only now, after 19 months of siege and slaughter, after the images of starving Palestinian children with swollen bellies and hollow eyes, after the mass graves and the bombed-out hospitals, after the annihilation of entire families, only now do we hear the Government saying that next week, it will bring a memo in respect of the occupied territories Bill. Only now, when the scale of destruction has pierced even the most hardened conscience, when the term "plausible genocide" echoes in the halls of the UN, do we hear Europe agreeing to question or even just review its trade deals with the very state responsible. Let us not dress this up as courage. That is not leadership. This is a catch-up with our own conscience.

A Bill was written in 2018 with Senator Frances Black. Its purpose was clear, to stop Ireland trading in goods produced in stolen Palestinian land and to recognise that the settlements built through dispossession are not just illegal but are part of a system of apartheid and oppression. Fianna Fáil brought that Bill to Second Stage in Dáil Éireann in 2018. That was the punishment Fianna Fáil felt Israel deserved at that point. This is what is coming next week, the exact same thing, while we are on the precipice of a genocide.

Successive Governments have blocked the occupied territories Bill. They have delayed it and buried it under excuses and we were told it was complicated, that Ireland might get sued and that we needed to wait. Wait for what? Wait for the apartheid, the ethnic cleansing, the ongoing genocide that has been inflicted upon the Palestinian people by the State of Israel?

That moment should always raise a question that goes far beyond Ireland. What exactly does it take to say that when a state can announce its intent to annihilate another people, it can effectively do so without sanction? What does it say when a lack of food is used as a weapon, when journalists are targeted, when aid convoys are bombed and the international community keeps trading as if nothing is happening? Why should any nation on earth not feel emboldened to do the same when clearly there is one state on earth that has felt no consequences for its actions?

The EU found its backbone when Putin invaded Ukraine. Sanctions came swiftly, trade was cut and assets were frozen. There was no debate about sensitivity. There was no moral clarity. However, when Israel commits atrocities in broad daylight, we hesitate. We use the language of diplomacy to cover the language of war. We talk about complexity while children starve. We should have led on this. Our history could have enabled us to do so. We had the legitimacy of our own past to stand forward and lead, but we did not. We equivocated.

I hope this small step we take will be the first sign of consequence. Let this not be the end of it. Let this be the moment when Ireland says we will not trade in the spoils of colonisation, stay neutral in the face of ethnic cleansing or look away while people are systematically erased. If our history means anything to us, it means we need to learn the lessons of our own history and apply them faster when others are enduring the same.

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