Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I second amendment No. 12, which, as the proposer stated, expresses our abhorrence at the attack on the hospital. It is an absolute low.

The motion begins in a very balanced fashion by unanimously, or unambiguously, rather, condemning Hamas and the horrors of the attack on the concert, etc. It is like an equivalent to our Electric Picnic or whatever being similarly attacked.

To go on to some of these substantive points I want to make, I could use a simple expression that we are all familiar with, which is that is that two wrongs do not make a right. Disconnecting water, food and electricity was wrong and a collective punishment of the people of Gaza is wrong. It is against humanitarian standards. We want the humanitarian corridor open and we want a ceasefire to achieve that. The motion states that. The proposal to move the population south was unrealistic and wrong and a breach of international humanitarian rules and laws. The density of population of the south and the infrastructure is such that it could not absorb the population even if it were right to do so.

The motion does not question Israel's right to defend itself but it does say that it must be within international rules. There is a case for a pause and de-escalation. I did not read Senator McDowell's article yet but I would agree with his thesis that in some respects Israel is understandably angry but making policies based on anger is never a good idea. It could end up with a kind of Iraq situation. Things could be much more difficult and protracted and it could become a regional war. It could be greatly to the detriment of Palestinians. It would be greatly to the detriment of Palestinians and Israelis to continue. They are being lured into something of a trap there. I look forward to reading that article and I support the thesis therein.

Spreading is a real issue. We need de-escalation. Politics will have to work. Politics had to work in Ireland and it will have to work here. We will have to have a political solution. We cannot continue with the situation that pertained in the occupied territories. The illegal settlements, the arbitrary treatment of people, the lack of human supplies, the lack of employment and all that went with it was wrong and it is wrong. All these root causes of violence must be removed to address the issue. We cannot have an Israeli population or people permanently under siege either. I contend that we need de-escalation, we need politics to intervene and we need reason to prevail. Ultimately, that will have to be the situation. If we allow this to spread into a regional conflict with mass murder, mass trauma, etc., and an annihilation of people, we will ultimately have to go back to politics as a solution, so why not try to bring that forward? Hamas has very cleverly attempted to lure Israel into something quite dangerous and a pause is necessary.

The motion is balanced in that we are unambiguous. There is no ambiguity around our condemnation of what Hamas did and what it stands for. That is not ambiguous. There is also no ambiguity around our condemnation of actions by Israel that are outside of international law, that are wrong, and historic actions that could have contributed to today's situation.

In summary, my view is that politics has to come in. We need a settlement. We need de-escalation and we need peace. There might be an element of naivety or utopianism there but it is our function as a neutral country and as part of the EU to work towards that. It does not look like that is on in the short term but that is not a reason it should not be our collective aspiration. The collective message from the Irish Government and from the Irish people, collectively across all parts of the population, is that is what we want.