Frances Black (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I touched on the following issue yesterday. I note the Israeli elections today and the news that Benjamin Netanyahu looks set to be returned as Prime Minister. That is very worrying. All of us who are internationalists and who are concerned about human rights and the rule of law should consider what these elections mean in practice. We have a situation where millions of people living under permanent military occupation did not get a say yesterday. They did not vote for the government that ultimately controls the most fundamental aspects of their everyday lives. The occupation has been in place for 50 years but while Palestinians living in the West Bank know these elections will determine their futures and shape the conditions that they somehow live under, they can only look on in hope or, more accurately, in despair.Polling stations are set up in illegal settlements built across the West Bank to facilitate the franchise of Israeli citizens transferred into occupied territory no matter that this is a war crime, a flagrant violation of international law and the stark anti-democratic reality of an occupied population watching on as their neighbours vote on competing promises of annexation. To put it mildly, this is not what democracy looks like. In a closing day pitch to this base, Netanyahu promised that if re-elected, he would formally annex the West Bank. In reality, this shameful promise is essentially about formalising a situation that has already taken place over decades. The de factoannexation of the West Bank has been a gradual process settlement by settlement and has been facilitated by an international community quick to harshly condemn this illegality but totally unwilling to take any meaningful steps to halt it. This election and the right-wing government it will produce should act as another reminder. We will soon come to the point at which we will drive past the last exit on the road to annexation. This is the reason I tabled the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill. I was proud to see this legislation being supported strongly by both Houses of the Oireachtas and to present it at the UN last week. I saw strong support and an understanding that countries like Ireland, committed as we are to human rights and international law, have a duty to stand strongly against these practices. As we share the same goal of realising the basic human rights of the Palestinian people, I urge the Government to reconsider its position on this Bill. It can provide important input at a time of little hope and I fully intend to see it through these Houses and into law over the coming months. The signal we send would be stronger still if we can do it unanimously.