Frances Black (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. I can only imagine how busy he is and particularly the Minister for Foreign Affairs at this time with everything that is happening in Ukraine. I imagine it must be taking up the majority of the Minister of State's time. It is a very worrying situation and I express my sympathy for the Ukrainian people, who are being subjected to terrible violence, and I condemn the invasion by Russia of a sovereign country.

Our Government along with our European partners have rightly condemned the breaking of international law. Without the adherence to international law, the world could quickly spiral into destruction, but the flouting of international law by Israel has been ongoing without any real consequences. This could also be said in the case of Saudi Arabia and the war on Yemen, which has been ongoing for the past seven years and where 10,000 children alone have died due to direct and indirect causes of this war. The war on Yemen has been extremely under-reported due to the media being prohibited from entering the country. There has been very little humanitarian assistance provided to this country and its people due to blockades imposed in 2016

However, we are here to talk about the Amnesty International report. I must start by congratulating Amnesty International on publishing this report, which is the result of years of research and lays out in great detail the crime of apartheid as committed by Israel against the Palestinian people. I welcome Tim Hanley from Amnesty Ireland, Frank Connolly from ICTU, Mags O'Brien, Brian Allen and Yara Alagha, and extend an especially warm welcome to the Palestinian ambassador to Ireland, H.E. Jilan Wahba Abdalmajid. This is the latest in a growing list of such reports from UN committees and from Israeli, international and Palestinian organisations. Of course, Palestinians have been telling us for decades that they live under a regime of apartheid imposed on them by Israel. We, however, have not been listening.

At the outset, it is important to be clear about the exact nature of the crime of apartheid. The International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid outlines in great detail why apartheid is a crime against humanity. It states that policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination are crimes that violate the principles of international law and the Charter of the United Nations. The Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court describes the crime of apartheid as crimes committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group over any other racial group and systematically oppressing them. That is exactly what Israel has done. It has established and maintains a system of domination and oppression of the Palestinian people in the entire territory from the river to the sea and among the Palestinian refugee population.

As Hagai El-Ad, director of the Israeli NGO B'Tselem, said on publication of that organisation's report on Israeli apartheid, no Palestinian has rights equal to any Jewish Israeli in the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. The primary objective of a colonising project such as that practised by Israel is the control of territory. This control requires the displacement, removal, fragmentation and isolation of Palestinians from each other and from the outside world. Even Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, cannot leave Ramallah without permission from Israel, whether for overseas or internal travel.Everything we see serves a purpose. This includes: forced removals and transfers; demographic manipulation; land grabs; settlement expansion and settler violence;the construction of hundreds of kilometres of walls and fences; endless checkpoints; separate roads for Palestinians and Jewish settlers; different laws for Jewish Israelis and Palestinians; administrative detentions; the system of travel permits; mass surveillance and restrictions on movement; inequality of access to basic resources such as water; the denial of building permits; the blockade of Gaza; and the denial of nationality and citizenship. It goes on. The result is a series of disconnected bantustans surrounded by Israeli occupation forces and settlements, just like Israel has done in occupied Golan. Israel has no intention of ending this decades-long system of oppression. In fact, it has intensified and it plans to continue as the world stands by and refuses to respond. We have all the details now. It is no longer possible to pretend we do not know or that we do not understand. We know. We understand. Surely now we are also convinced.

Let us be clear. Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Israel has constructed a regime of apartheid over Palestinians in the entire territory under its control. By continuing to not take action, Ireland and the Government are complicit in crimes against humanity. As a responsible member of the international community of nations, totally dependent as a small nation on the rules-based order and no longer able to pretend we did not know, we are now obliged to act. Israel must be accountable for the crime of apartheid.

We are told the occupied territories Bill, which would make illegal the importation of goods or services from occupied territories which, by the way, could include the importation of goods and services from an occupied Ukraine, cannot be enacted as trade is an EU competency. There is considerable eminent legal advice available to me that indicates the Bill would be lawful under EU public interest considerations. Given the invasion and occupation of Ukraine, is this legislation not more necessary now than ever? The Minister, Deputy Coveney, has told me many times it would breach EU law. I urge the Minister of State, the Minister, Deputy Coveney, and the Department to look at this again. It is a modest initiative and one which we as a sovereign nation should implement. If the EU wishes to challenge it let it do so. This is a matter of doing the right thing and having the courage of our convictions. These are two actions the Government could take tomorrow if it wished. It could pass the occupied territories Bill and make a clear public statement that Israel is implementing apartheid policies against the Palestinian people.

The past week has shown the world how quickly sanctions can be imposed on states engaged in violations of international law. Some of the sanctions imposed on Russia go far beyond anything Palestinians and their supporters have called for to be applied to Israel. More than seven decades after Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homes to facilitate its creation, the occupation and colonisation of the remainder of historic Palestine, decades of apartheid laws, human rights abuses and international law violations, not a single economic or diplomatic sanction has been placed on Israel despite the overwhelming support of global public opinion for such actions. I urge all Members to invite people to support the European citizens initiative. If it secures 1 million signatures from European citizens by 20 February 2023 it will force the European Commission to propose legal acts to prevent the import and export of products to and from the illegal settlements. This is a very important effort and deserves our full support.

There are many important recommendations in the Amnesty report. Amnesty has asked that countries review any co-operation and activities with Israel to ensure they do not contribute to maintaining the system of apartheid. I wholeheartedly support this. I ask the Minister of State to institute such a review in the case of Ireland and to report on the outcome to the Oireachtas.

Will the Minister of State acknowledge today that Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people amounts to apartheid? Will he agree to prepare a set of actions which the Government will implement following Dáil Éireann's unanimous adoption last year of a motion stating that Israel has, de facto, annexed large parts of the occupied West Bank?