Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Leas-Cathaoirleach. Given that it is UN International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, I raise an issue related to the Israel-Palestine conflict that has been overshadowed.Like all conflicts, there is always a material aspect to the war. For decades, Israel has exploited Palestinian natural resources in contravention of international law. A recent study by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development points out that new discoveries of natural gas in the Levant Basin are in the region of 122 trillion cu. ft, while recoverable oil is estimated at 1.7 billion barrels. In light of the significant fossil fuel reserve under Palestinian territory, I wish to raise concerns about the control of these resources with the Minister of State. Those reserves should be used for the benefit of the Palestinian people. However, the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territory since 1967 and the blockade of the Gaza Strip since 2007 have prevented the Palestinian people from exercising any control over their own fossil fuel resources. I fear those resources will be exploited for the benefit of others.

What is worse is that the EU now seems to be complicit in facilitating the Israeli Government in appropriating those resources. The EU’s involvement, and therefore Ireland’s involvement, stems from the memorandum of understanding between the EU, the State of Israel and the Arab Republic of Egypt, which was signed in June 2022 in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The three parties thrashed out a deal to help ensure Europe’s energy security. The memorandum of understanding outlines that the three sides will endeavour to work collectively towards enabling a stable delivery of natural gas to the EU.

What is deeply troubling though is that in the memorandum, for the first time in approximately ten years, the EU has agreed a deal like this with Israel without any clause excluding the occupied Palestinian land. The long-standing Irish and EU policy is that all agreements with Israel should be explicitly inapplicable to territories occupied by Israel in 1967. The 2012 European Council's meeting on foreign affairs restated this policy position. It stated:

The EU reiterates that it will not recognise any changes to the pre-1967 borders ... The European Union expresses its commitment to ensure that - in line with international law - all agreements between the State of Israel and the European Union must unequivocally and explicitly indicate their inapplicability to the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, namely the Golan Heights, the West Bank including east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

The memorandum of understanding contravenes UN policy as set out in the UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which underlines that it “will not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations” and calls upon all states, bearing in mind paragraph 1 of the resolution, “to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.”

It is a troubling development that there is no mention of the clause on the occupied territories in the memorandum of understanding signed last year. It forces us to question what length the EU will go to ensure energy security. Why has there been this change in policy? Why has any reference to the occupied territories been excluded? It begs the question as to whether this could be feeding into the reasons the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill has been left languishing in the Dáil and will not be passed, given that the EU now seems to be ignoring its own policy of excluding the occupied territories.