Don Lydon (Fianna Fail)

I was hoping to tie up matters at the end.

Life in Palestine today is life in an open prison. The daily life of any Palestinian is, to quote a phrase, "nasty, brutish and short". Palestinians need permits for everything — to go to school, to work, to shop, even to post letters. There is very little a Palestinian can do without Israeli permission. There is a network of more than 400 checkpoints. Ostensibly they are there to deter suicide bombers but in reality they serve to separate Palestinian from Palestinian and have little impact on suicide bombers.

The checkpoints have a devastating effect on the daily life of Palestinians. Each Palestinian goes through one checkpoint at least once daily. He or she might wait for hours. It is an old-fashioned technique. It was used by the British in the Six Counties, and I often had to wait for hours, though not every day, or everywhere, as Palestinians must do. From September 2000 to April 2004, 82 sick Palestinians died at Israeli checkpoints, having been forbidden passage. Since the beginning of 2002, 52 Palestinian women have given birth at checkpoints. Two years before that, 19 Palestinian women and 29 newborn Palestinian babies died at checkpoints for lack of medical care. They were not let through.

I have experience of being held up while coming from Bethlehem to Jerusalem and going to Hebron. I was left sitting at the checkpoint. There was nothing on the far side and no reason one could not get through. Israeli soldiers chat and laugh among themselves and there is nothing one can do. They have the guns and one is sitting there.

There has been a policy of destruction and humiliation over the past three and a half years. Israeli armed forces have demolished more than 2,000 homes, leaving tens of thousands of men, women and children homeless and without a livelihood, just like the evictions in the old days in Ireland by our British landlords. It is the same with the Israelis. The evicted victims are mostly the poorest and most disadvantaged. Families are left destitute. The wall encircling Palestinians is a violation of international law.

Why and how is all this happening? In 1897, the first Zionist congress in Basle introduced the Basle Programme which stated, "Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine secured under public law." The Palestinians did not want them, but in 1909, Tel Aviv was developed as the first all-Jewish city. From then on there was a gradual encroachment, annexation, expulsion and humiliation of the Palestinian people. That is Al-Naqba, or the catastrophe, as the Palestinians call it. There are now 4 million Palestinian refugees who are not allowed to return. This refusal to allow them return is also against international law or United Nations resolutions.

I have spoken to many Israelis at conferences and in Israel and asked why they ignore the UN resolutions. The answer is simple. They are surrounded by enemies such as Hizbollah, who they see as wanting to wipe out the state of Israel. Accordingly they retaliate, but their retaliation has always been disproportionate. If it were not for the billions of dollars paid by the Americans to the Israelis, the latter would have made peace long ago because they would not have been able to keep the effort going. It is ironic in a way. I spoke before about the initiation ceremony for the elite corps of the Israeli army, which is the nearest thing to the Nuremberg rally that one could see. Torchlight parades feature the Star of David instead of the swastika. Without realising it, these soldiers have in a way become the new Nazis. The oppressed became the oppressors.

I welcome the stated intention of the Israeli Government to withdraw from the Gaza Strip as part of its implementation of the roadmap process. It is the only way forward. I note with concern the escalation in violent acts emanating from both sides in the conflict. These acts serve only to impede and frustrate peace efforts. I welcome the clear decision of the International Court of Justice on the illegality of the wall separating and encircling the Palestinian population of the West Bank and the subsequent UN General Assembly resolution to the same effect, backed unanimously by all 25 members. The construction of the wall has continued because the Israelis ignore these resolutions. They see themselves as a Jewish nation with no friends. At the UN, all the Arab states vote against them. Others too vote against them, while some vote for them. The Israelis are on their own. Only the Americans back them, so they urge everyone else to hell while they intend to defend themselves at all costs.

The matter has reached the stage where neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis on their own can reach a solution. The violations of human rights have been too great, as is the hatred sown. The problem can be solved but only with the roadmap and continued pressure from the EU, Russia, America and others.

When the war in Iraq began I was one of those in this House who said it was illegal and immoral. The results now include 30,000 Iraqis dead along with young soldiers from America, Italy, Britain and elsewhere. It is a sad situation. Members will agree that if Iraq grew bananas instead of oil, there would be no war. This has led to torture in the prisons in Iraq, but it produced Guantanamo Bay too, whereby poor people from mountainous regions of Afghanistan were hooded, blindfolded, put in uniform, forced to kneel and tortured. That was America's shame. The mighty democracy of the world is shamed by this event.

I have given two examples of America backing events without much thought for what is going on behind them, or without caring. America is now the policeman of the world and the Iraqi and Palestinian conflicts are intimately connected. The main motivations are greed, power and money, and the Jewish vote in the US helps. However, we cannot abandon Israel at this stage. That is sometimes forgotten. Although Israel's actions are disproportionate to the aggression visited upon it, we cannot abandon Israel. The state of Israel exists whether we like it or not. We must support that state so that it feels secure surrounded by Arab neighbours, rather than threatened by them. We cannot abandon the Palestinians either and we must insist on the return of the 4 million refugees. They cannot return until the Palestinian lands are returned.

It is amazing to see Mr. Sharon moving in the direction in which he is moving. This is a man who led many raids and killed many people in his earlier days and who precipitated the intifada. Rather than merely consider what is wrong we must ask if we can do anything about the situation. There is always something we can do. Someone suggested today that sanctions be applied to Israel. That will not do much good. The only way we can move forward in both of these conflicts is through dialogue. That is the only way we have been able to move forward on this island. Force does not work. The Americans are now calling for further British armed forces to go to Iraq, and there has been a similar call for Irish armed forces. We have a reputation for peacekeeping rather than for oppression and it is too early for our armed forces to go to Iraq.

We can however highlight the situation. We are a small Parliament in a small country but if sufficient small parliaments in small countries continue to highlight matters, change takes place gradually yet irrevocably in every conflict throughout the world. This one will not be any different. We must keep fighting and keep trying. We must support Israel's efforts to live in peace and support the Palestinians in gaining the return of their homeland and the return of their refugees. This can be done. It will be a long, slow haul and it might be a case of taking one step backwards for every two taken forward. However, we must take those two steps forward.