Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

I thank my colleagues in Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats and the Labour Party and Independent colleagues who have supported and co-sponsored this motion. I thank Senator Frances Black for her ongoing efforts since she instigated this Bill in 2018. Most importantly, I thank the hundreds of thousands of people in this country who have mobilised again and again in unprecedented protests in every city, town, village and hamlet of the country against the genocidal horror that Israel has been inflicting on the Palestinian people over the past two years. All those people can see the political and moral bankruptcy of this Government when it comes to the issue of Palestine. The speech that was given really is shameful. This starts with the failure of the new Minister to come in here. People who are not familiar with how this place works need to understand that the Minister's absence is a studied exercise in contempt designed to make sure that this debate does not get any media coverage. That is why the Government has done that. It did not want this to get attention, even though it was clear it was the issue on which the Minister was under pressure. She spoke about it yesterday night on television and said she would talk to her Government colleagues about it today but she did not bother to come into the Dáil, the democratically elected Chamber of these Houses, where it is being discussed, to discuss it. It is a studied exercise in contempt and it speaks volumes about the Government's strategy on this issue for years, speaking out of both sides of its mouth on the issue of Palestine, mouthing solidarity but doing absolutely nothing - not a single sanction against the State of Israel.

I have been campaigning for and advocating sanctions on Israel since 1987, when I was in Palestine, because I was so shocked by the regime that exists there and the endemic racism and apartheid against the Palestinian people. There have been people campaigning in this country all those years, more than 30 years, demanding the end of the State of Israel's impunity for the ongoing crimes it has been committing since 1948. In fact, the Zionist movement has been committing crimes against Palestinians since before 1948 and has been explicit about it. Zionism is clear: Zionists intend to ethnically cleanse Palestine. Zionism is genocidal in its very nature and character. There have been decades of ethnic cleansing and apartheid, the siege of Gaza and then the genocide of the past two years, with still not a single sanction from this Government.

The bankruptcy of the EU is equally on display. Last night the Minister and the Taoiseach came in here and said it was absolutely essential to impose sanctions and they imposed 19 different rounds of sanctions. That was done almost instantaneously. The double standards are absolutely clear. It is only really because of the heroic resistance of the Palestinian people that we have what is not even a ceasefire. Israel killed 13 people in Lebanon last night and has killed about 260 people since the so-called ceasefire, which was forced on Israel and Donald Trump. That is what happened. Trump even admitted it when he said he rang up Netanyahu and told him they could not take on the world. That is what he said. They were forced into the ceasefire. The Minister of State's speech thanks the United States for their efforts in bringing about a ceasefire. Is he joking? Israel could not continue the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the illegal settlements and the genocidal horror it has inflicted on Gaza were it not for that "complicity", although that is too weak a word. Israel is simply acting as an outpost of US foreign policy, something Biden admitted when he said, "Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel". They would have to station US troops in the Middle East because this is all about American colonial and imperial control of that region, collaborating with brutal dictatorships and then with the State of Israel as their military watchdog to slap down any attempt by the people of that region to assert their right to self-determination. That is what it is about. It is absolutely shocking that the Government has failed to do anything about it but that is the truth. The Government is dancing to the tune of Trump and so on but showing utter contempt for the people of this country, for democracy and for the solemn promises the Government made. It was forced to make them in the run-up to the election because it knew what the people of this country wanted and demanded.

The Government said it before the general election and then rolled back on it and did absolutely nothing because it is dancing to the tune of Trump and the US Administration. It is shameful. End this shameful failure to act and finally act against this regime for its criminal brutality, oppression and genocidal actions against the Palestinian people and pass this Bill. The Government should be doing a hell of a lot more. We should be completely boycotting the State of Israel. Can the Government at least do what it said what it would do?

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