Rebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

We have all been watching in horror as events have been unfolding in the Middle East since last Saturday week. Ireland can play, and has played, a constructive role on the international stage. There was potential for us to speak with one voice across all parties in condemning the horror attacks on innocent civilians by Hamas and the brutal response by the Israeli Government, which has signalled that it plans to break international law with collective punishment, spun under the guise of terrorists using civilians and hiding by infrastructure, to launch indiscriminate attacks on civilians, cutting off humanitarian corridors and aid supplies and the brutal attack on the al Ahli hospital last night. The image of children, innocents who have been dismissed as collateral damage by some spokespersons I have heard, strikes at the very heart of our humanity. When attacks such as this can be considered and spun as the right to self-defence, we have to ask how the homeland of the Jewish state, coming with the history of persecution of Jews, has descended into this language. There is not much to defend when we sink to these levels of retribution. It is a collective scar on all of us if we allow this type of conduct in war to happen.

Yesterday I was struck by a letter to the Financial Timesfrom a group of Jewish lawyers, including the excellent Philippe Sands, who can write much more eloquently than I can speak. I will quote from the letter:

We write as Jews, many of us with family and friends directly affected by the tragedy that has befallen Israel. Like so many others, the vile crimes perpetrated by Hamas in Israel have shaken us to our core. We also write in our capacity as lawyers. We do so because, instilled with our Jewish values, we believe that law, and the adherence to the rule of law, provide an invaluable guide to begin to make sense of what we are witnessing and to provide a path to govern responses to it. In these darkest of days, we write to emphasise the importance of international law as a guide to all.[...]

In these early days when emotions are so understandably raw, many might be reluctant to remind Israel of its international law obligations, considering to do so insensitive or inappropriate. However, we disagree. In these times of pain and terror the notion that there are laws that we must all live by is challenging but essential. Jewish history teaches us that we cannot give up on them.

The adherence to international law is a pillar. It is essential for all of us to remember the international human rights and the laws of war that were decided in the wake of the Holocaust.

I want to issue a word of caution about what I see online from some of us, in a desire to do something in the face of the unconscionable humanitarian disaster which is unfolding. I have seen people urge others to inform themselves, through sharing memes and Instagram stories, that the establishment of Israel in 1948 was a colonial settlement, as if nothing else had happened in that decade. This ignores hundreds of years of Jewish persecution and expulsion from the Middle East, Russia and Europe. I urge people to understand the weight of the word "expulsion" when it comes to using it casually about Jewish people. This is a personal word I want to add regarding our conduct when we speak about what is unfolding in the Middle East. It is complex and it comes with the weight not only of 100 years of history but hundreds of years of history.

In the 1990s we were tantalisingly close to peace efforts and acceptance of a two-state solution. No side has covered itself in glory since, least of all the right-wing Netanyahu Government which has aggressively expanded settlements that have, as Senator McDowell so eloquently put it today in The Irish Times, rendered a two-state solution almost impossible. A two-state solution and peace in the Middle East, as we know from our own history and indeed the history of Europe, require compromise. They require understanding rather than broadcasting. The pressure to blame others is often heavier than the pressure to move forward. Peace is still worth advocating for. We in this country, and those of us in both Houses, can advocate for a strong voice for human rights on the international stage when others lose theirs.