David Norris (Independent)

May I with unparalleled generosity award the last minute to my friend and colleague, Senator Bacik? The Minister of State is most welcome and I thank him for his courtesy in giving me the notes of his speech. I wish to say something about the context of this debate. It is very short and rushed. I am grateful to the Minister of State for being present. He is a person of substance and weight within Government and I hope he will carry back a message to his colleagues.

This debate is instead of the debate for which I asked. That was a debate which was originated by the motion I put to the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, which was unanimously passed and which was sent to both the Dáil and the Seanad from the committee. I confirmed that from the ante room some five minutes before this debate occurred. I understand we will be taking that perhaps next week. That is the important motion and we must repass it. I accepted some of the amendments and some of the watering down. There were some elements I did not like in it, but that is the motion which refers to the war crimes and that is absolutely essential. We are strengthening the hands of the Minister for Foreign Affairs in looking for that in the continuing negotiations. I am most grateful to my colleague, Senator Cummins, for putting the text of that on the record of the House. This will not go away, it will be taken again next week.

The Minister of State's speech, like the curate's egg, was good in parts. We are trying a balancing act. It is a pity the Minister of State could not have attended the meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs last week to hear the distinguished Israeli historian, Professor Ilan Pappé, say we should avoid this attempt to be even-handed because it does violence to the real situation. We are always trying to balance and say on the one hand, the Israelis, and on the other, Hamas. It is not an equal situation. This is colonisation and the expulsion and attempted extirpation of an indigenous people.

When the Minister of State says he supports the upgrading of the Israeli trade agreements, I wonder have we learnt nothing. How can the Minister of State support that? That is where I part company with him. I know about EuroMed, the external trade association agreement between the European Union and the state of Israel which gives preferential treatment to the export of their goods. Human rights protocols are attached to that which are not even monitored. What is the point of them? It is a blasphemy against the concept of human rights to have them there on paper while at the beginning of his speech the Minister of State makes clear that he believes there is a prima facie case that Israel is involved in war crimes, only then to say he is supportive of upgrading the trade relations, perhaps in return for some political progress. What about human rights? If those protocols mean anything they should be examined now. Had the European Union done so it could have switched that war off in 15 minutes because it imports 75% of Israel's agricultural produce. If we had threatened that the Israelis would have changed their tone. That is why it is indefensible they should be rewarded in this way.

The Minister of State complimented Egypt. I do not compliment Egypt; I condemn it. I was there and saw what the Egyptians were doing and the shameful way in which they stopped doctors from around the world going in and held them at the Rafah border crossing. They gassed the unfortunate people in those tunnels who brought in some arms but were also bringing in medical supplies, foodstuffs, aid of various kinds and money, the lifeblood which the Israelis were strangling out of them.

I am not anti-Semitic. No one could dare accuse me of being anti-Semitic. I had an apartment there for nearly 30 years. I lived with an Israeli Jew. I know all about it. I love the civilisation. What the Israeli Government is doing there is as much a blasphemy against Judaism and its respect for life as the American regime was a blasphemy against Christianity with Bush daring — presuming — to call himself a Christian in this matter.

We have a long way to go. There were difficulties. I laugh when I hear the Israelis say: "Why did they not use the greenhouses?" What rubbish. Even in the days of Yasser Arafat, when I was in Gaza, I saw the mounds of rotting fruit and vegetables because the Israelis had strangled the area. They will not let one blade of grass be exported. It is cynical hypocrisy for them to ask: "Why did they not use the greenhouses that we gave them?" They left them nothing that was not useless and insupportable. They are using new weapons, DIME munitions. It is unspeakable. I said this was a blitz and that it was like the Warsaw Ghetto. They do not like that but that is what it is. The Minister of State's German colleagues are protecting the Israelis. I do not think the Palestinians should suffer because of the guilty conscience of the Germans. It is about time we said the Holocaust was a situation of unique horror and as such is the inheritance of all humanity. It is not the private possession of a corrupt Israeli Government to use as a shield to deflect criticism of its own gross abuses of human rights. I salute those within Israel who have had the enormous courage to stand up and the Jewish people who wrote a letter to The Irish Times. They are the people of great courage because it takes guts to criticise one's own people.

Last autumn the Israelis knew they had to get in before Obama replaced Bush. Of course they knew they could use the situation for electoral purposes but there was a ceasefire involving Hamas, which was the legally elected government. Let us not hear about democracy unless we are able to accept internationally monitored elections. Last October, during the truce, the number of rockets had dropped from 373 to none, then the Israelis went in and murdered three people. That is what happened. I will leave it at that until next week.