David Norris (Independent)

I support the call by Senator Leyden for a debate on the Middle East. At this hour, as we speak, my former partner of many years, Ezra Yitzrak Nawi, is being sentenced in a court in Jerusalem. His crime is that he took part in a non-violent demonstration against the demolition of the home of two elderly Palestinians. Film clearly shows him removing stones from the hands of some of the more aggressive Palestinians, telling them it was a non-violent demonstration. He disappears from the frame and emerges some minutes later, dishevelled, with the soldiers smiling. He has been charged and convicted of attacking the soldiers. The judge in the case said there was a conflict of evidence but she chose to believe the police and the soldiers.

This is the Denning judgment, the appalling vista, and it is a moral disgrace. I express my gratitude to this House, the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and, most particularly, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Micheál Martin, who has been directly and courageously engaged in detail with our representatives in the Middle East. I thank him for it.

Senator Leyden was correct concerning the act of piracy conducted yesterday by the Israeli navy against the appropriately named Spirit of Humanity, 24 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza. The Israelis have no legal interest in this. It was an act of piracy. The name of the ship is significant and important. The cargo was toys, medicines and food for a people that have been described by the International Red Cross as being in despair after the blitzkrieg visited upon them illegally by the Israeli Government, which is in betrayal of the noble spirit of Judaism. The Israelis previously sank another boat in which one of the passengers was an 84 year old Jewish Holocaust survivor. Therefore, let nobody say this is anti-Semitism. It is an attempt, in difficult circumstances, to keep alive the spirit of humanity.