Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing my time with Senator Lynn Boylan.

I welcome the Palestinian ambassador, who is in the Gallery, as are my comrades Mr. Frank Connolly from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and Mr. Tim Hanley from Amnesty International. It is great to have them here today. I thank them for coming.

I have a prepared speech but am not sure how much of it I will use. I want to stress how important this Amnesty International report is. As others have said, it is very detailed, amounting to 300 pages. It is so conclusive because it produces evidence under so many headings to demonstrate that Israel is operating an apartheid state.

I will refer only briefly to my script because I want to make some other points. The report is meticulous, its details are microscopic, and its sources are comprehensive and knowledgeable. It builds on decades of investigations by Amnesty International and human rights organisations, including Israeli and Palestinian organisations. More than 450 civic organisations have recognised that Israel is an apartheid state. I hope no one is going to suggest seriously that all 450 are wrong.

For the purposes of accuracy and authenticity, I want to highlight some of the wording of the report rather than give my interpretation of the report: "Amnesty International has documented and analysed Israel's institutionalised and systematic discrimination against Palestinians within the framework of the definition of apartheid under international law." It also states: "It has done so by firstly determining Israel's intent to oppress and dominate all Palestinians by establishing its hegemony across Israel and the OPT, including through means of demography, and maximising resources for the benefit of its Jewish population at the expense of Palestinians." Its assessment is that almost all of Israel's civilian administration and military authorities, as well as governmental and quasi-governmental institutions, are involved in the enforcement of the system of apartheid against Palestinians across Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, and also against Palestinian refugees and their descendants outside the territory.

The work done by Amnesty International has been thorough and extensive. It also states what we all know and what is very clear: "Apartheid is a violation of public international law, a grave violation of internationally protected human rights and a crime against humanity under international criminal law." Why is the State of Israel permitted to be part of the international community? Why does the EU continue its preferential treatment of Israel? This report demonstrates quite clearly that Israel is not a democratic state and should not be a member of any democratic assembly of nations until it earns the democratic right to be so.

I want to talk briefly about the fact that I visited Palestine just a few years ago and saw for myself how apartheid operates. I met a young woman in the West Bank who explained that she could not even travel the seven miles to East Jerusalem because she was not a Jewish citizen. She did not have the right to travel within her own country. I saw at first hand military courts operated by the Israeli authorities. There is a civil court system for Jewish people and a military court system for Palestinians. I saw a young man who did not understand what was going on because all the proceedings were in Hebrew. He had an interpreter who was laughing and smiling along with the military before he, the young man, was sent away to prison. Hundreds of children are interned in occupied Palestine. We do not know the number because the authorities have stopped releasing the figures. There are horrendous demolitions of properties and, of course, the callous taking of lives over such a long period.

I cannot understand the phrase "the Government does not use the term 'apartheid' as we do not think it is helpful". To whom does the Minister believe it is not helpful? As the last speaker, Senator Martin, said, we have to be honest with ourselves. I call on the Minister of State to be honest and recognise what all of us in this Chamber know, that is, that Israel is an apartheid state.