Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)

Tacaím leis an rún seo agus molaim Páirtí an Lucht Oibre as ucht an rún seo a chur faoi bhráid na Dála. I thank the Labour Party for bringing this motion before the Dáil. It needs to be supported across the Chamber. The clock is ticking towards famine in Gaza. Those are the words of the head of the UN agency for Palestine. This is no natural famine or natural disaster; it is a man-made famine designed to clear Gaza of Palestinians. The term "man-made famine" resonates in Ireland more than in any other country in the world. In Ireland, we lost over 1 million people to a man-made famine. They were starved to death in horrendous circumstances. We lost well over 1 million people to emigration because of man-made famine. Families were ripped from their communities and their loved ones and forced to emigrate to other countries. In 1847, we saw famine used as a tool of ethnic cleansing in this country. The term "man-made famine" resonates at a far deeper and more visceral level here in Ireland than in any other country. The Times of London stated at the time that Irish people would be as rare as Indians in Manhattan as a result of the ethnic cleansing that was happening. The darkness of that famine even today throws a shadow over this country. Ireland is one of the few counties in the world where the population is still less than it was in the 1840s.

Famine as a weapon of war is a war crime. As a result of our experience, this demands a response from us that is far stronger, far more real and far more effective than the response of the Government so far. It demands that we cannot sit on our hands or just use words in relation to this particular crisis. It demands that we use every tool we have to make sure there is change and that pressure is brought on Israel regarding what it is doing at the moment.

The Israeli Government has murdered 53,000 people. Hamas has murdered 1,700 people. Hamas is a terrorist organisation and it must release all the hostages. However, Benjamin Netanyahu has murdered 51 times the number of people that a terrorist organisation has murdered. Every life is sacred. We in Aontú believe that absolutely. The idea of a state murdering 51 times the number of people a terrorist organisation has murdered is absolutely shocking. I never imagined that I would see such death and destruction, that I would see Israeli bombs landing on tents, schools and hospitals, atomising the bodies of children. I never thought that I would see a horrendous abuse of human rights such as that we are seeing at the moment. Some 70% of people who are being killed in Gaza are women and children. This figure is even higher if all the non-combatants are included. I am a student of history. I can never get my head around the fact that we see such horrendous situations in history, yet we see society go on as normal, as though nothing has happened. The proportionate response from society is never what it should be. War crimes seem to be only understood in the past tense, not the present tense.

It was stated earlier that one day everybody will have opposed the murder of civilians in Gaza. That is an incredibly strong sentence. The problem is that if war crimes and murder are only understood in the past tense, this means we can never act in the present tense in order to stop them. That is what is demanded of this country now.

One of the problems we have is that the EU and the United States have underwritten the actions of Israel. As a result, they have allowed this to happen. The EU's response has been anaemic at best. Ursula von der Leyen strode the world stage at the start of this crisis saying that she gave full support to Israel in its time of need. Ursula von der Leyen distorted the foreign policy views of the Irish people at an international level. That is one of the reasons why it is wrong that we outsource so much of our foreign policy to the EU in regard to this matter. We need a situation where this country starts to use every tool. We in Aontú want the Government to make sure that the occupied territories Bill is implemented as soon as possible.

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