Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)

A deeply disturbing opinion poll was recently published in the Haaretz newspaper of Israel. Some 82% of the Israeli public support the ethnic cleansing of the 2 million people of Gaza from their homeland. This is an almost entirely refugee community. Furthermore, 65% support the biblical amalek command that all men, women and children should be killed and cleared from the land. That is where we are at. It is utterly horrific and the world has stood idly by. It is unforgivable.

In years to come, we in this Parliament will be asked what did we do in response to this. It is not a time to talk about multilateral approaches with the rest of Europe. If other European countries are willing to accept the mass starvation of the people of Gaza, we cannot stand by. We know our history. We know what happened to our people. One quarter of them died or were forced out of this country. That is our history. We must take a stand on behalf of the Irish people. We must do everything we can, whether it is enacting the occupied territories Bill or the Bill to ban Israeli bonds or passing this motion to have a UN peacekeeping group on the ground. Future generations will judge us. The Government cannot stick to the approach it has taken over recent years. We have now crossed the line where it is clear we are not dealing with rational people. We have to impose sanctions and take a stand as we did with South Africa. We led the way back then. Why are we not leading the way now?

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