I am returning to the issue of Palestine and the genocide that is going on there. This morning, we listened to RTÉ's report of what the Palestinian ambassador to the UN said. He spoke of how flames and hunger were devouring Palestinian children. We also listened to an eyewitness account of a doctor on the ground. I will provide a few figures, but how have we reached this point? How have we let this happen? A total of 54,000 Palestinians, including 15,613 children, are dead. The Lancet puts the figure for dead and injured much higher. More than 630,000 people have been displaced. At least 28 aid workers have been killed since 1 May, an average of one worker per day. Since 7 October 2023, 452 aid workers have been killed. What did Israel do today? It announced that it intended to establish 22 new settlements.

How have we allowed this to happen? I include myself in that question. We have let it happen because we have bought into a narrative that has been pushed for over 100 years - I would say 140 years at this stage - that the Jewish people were a people without a land and Palestine was a country without a people. Arising from that, the narrative took hold that they were entitled to that land, notwithstanding the Nakba in 1948 or the new Nakba that is happening under our eyes and noses. The narrative is that Israel is the only democracy and the bulwark against the Islamic religion and Muslims. We have all bought into that to a certain extent. When the Hamas attack took place on 7 October 2023, which we are on record for condemning, I also said that history did not start on that day.

I do not have much time, but I will read out some of the bullet points. On 6 October 2023, Israel controlled most of Palestine in complete defiance of international law. The people were kept under a blockade with electricity for less than a few hours per day. It continued the blockade of most of Gaza's population. At that point, Israel had built up an extensive infrastructure in the West Bank exclusively for Jews against international law. On 6 October 2023, Israel had already killed 250 Palestinians by October, including almost 50 children, in the most aggressive settler push across the West Bank for almost two decades. I am quoting from a new book called Catastrophe: Nakba II to be launched tonight by Fintan Drury. I invite all Members to go along to Hodges Figgis. I cannot find a more comprehensive and fair analysis of what has happened except The Hundred Years' War on Palestine.

It is time for us to reflect and stop the cognitive dissonance where we praise ourselves for taking the best action on Palestine and ask how an independent sovereign state - a republic - is standing over a narrative that is utterly false regarding Israel.

Go raibh maith agat, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, for your forbearance.

We are not standing over any false narrative. We are reiterating long-standing foreign policy and, I think, the long-standing policy of the people of Ireland that there needs to be a two-state solution in the Middle East, that the State of Israel has every right to exist in peace and security and that the people of Palestine have every right to a sovereign state that exists in peace and security. As we know in this country better than many, the only way to get to that point is through political dialogue, not through the genocidal activity we see from the Netanyahu Government.

I am not suggesting the Deputy did not do so but I always like to differentiate between the Government of Israel and the people of Israel because I believe many people in Israel are utterly horrified by the decisions being taken by the Netanyahu Government, which are genocidal, which are war crimes and which are starving children, which is in turn a breach of international law. Nobody in this House comes in and seeks to praise what Ireland is doing. What we do seek to do in this House is outline that, as a small country in the European Union, we are doing everything we can to maximise the pressure on the international community to help bring about a ceasefire. All political parties need to use their own political networks and links in European countries and the United States and everywhere else to try to help amplify that. What we see happening today and what we have seen happening for a very significant period is despicable and is an act of evil. This is evil at work. There is just no other way about that. I say it is evil because the people of this great country have, through their taxes, paid for a very significant amount of aid to get into Gaza, with enough food on trucks paid for by the Irish people to feed at least 6,000 people in Palestine, and for four months those trucks have been parked in Jordan. There is only one reason - no other reason - why those trucks cannot get in, and that is the Israeli blockade. While we want to see an immediate end to the conflict, of course, and we want to see a ceasefire and the release of all the hostages, in the here and now, today, the people in Gaza who are starving could be fed, and it is a political choice of the Israeli Government not to allow that aid in, which is also a war crime.

In Ireland, we will continue to do everything we can and we will continue to work constructively with the Opposition. A very good motion was put down by the Labour Party. Not only did we not oppose it but I will proactively work with the Opposition to advance it. I had very good engagement in the Seanad this morning with Senator Frances Black on the occupied Palestinian territories. We are the first country in Europe to do this. I say this in the hope that other countries now look to Ireland and say, "Hang on, if this little country on the periphery of Europe can pass legislation to ban trade with the occupied Palestinian territories, why can we not do it as well?" I call today, as I hope everybody in this House does, for other countries to replicate what we are doing.

On the issue of services, and before I am misrepresented again, as I constantly seem to be, I have no difficulty with services being included if we can find a legal way forward in that regard. There is no policy difference.

We have a lot of work to do on this. I never buy into the "Opposition good, Government bad" narrative. We are all appalled and sickened by the genocide we are witnessing.

We all may well be appalled and sickened, but the Government is refusing to face the elephant in the room. Israel has an umbilical cord attachment to America. America, followed by the EU, is the biggest supplier of arms to Israel, and the Irish Government is waiting for a morally corrupt and inept EU to take action. The EU is the second biggest supplier of arms to the genocide.

Let us call a spade a spade. We have no difficulty, and the Government has had no difficulty, criticising Russia. The same condemnation has not been used as regards Israel, identifying it as the aggressor that is perpetuating genocide. The Tánaiste's facial expressions do not help in that manner. This is far too serious.

I have just said that. Israel is committing genocide.

He can say a lot of things, and then we watch Shannon being used, an occupied territories Bill that is going nowhere and trade with Europe. Ours is a small country. It is time we led, given our history. It is time we called for an absolute ceasefire, led in the UN, made our words mean something and called out that narrative for what it is. Israel is a rogue state. It is not a democratic state. That narrative allowed a congressman, who said of Palestine, "Go in there and kick the ... [S-H-I-T] out of them", to come into this room just two months ago. This is a congressman who is fêted by one of the Tánaiste's colleagues and by another colleague in Fianna Fáil. How dare you shake your head? You stand up-----

I will shake my head if I want to, Deputy Connolly.

You have to conclude, Deputy Connolly.

You stand up-----

I will stand up.

-----and account for what we are going to do when you say there are war crimes and a genocide.

I hope I will get an extra 38 seconds as well-----

I would be delighted.

-----because there was the greatest load of palaver levelled at me there.

Palaver?

Please, Deputy Connolly.

Deputy Connolly has such vitriol for and dislike of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil that she cannot ever actually come above and rise to the moment. Ours is the first Government in the European Union to say that what Israel is doing is genocide. Do you hear that, Deputy? It is genocide.

Now what are you going to do about it?

Israel is committing war crimes, and we will pass the occupied Palestinian territories Bill.

Good. When?

We will pass that.

When?

We will pass it as quickly as possible.

Before the summer?

It will go to the foreign affairs committee in the month of June. While you are standing here just throwing brickbats at me-----

I am not throwing brickbats.

-----we are working to support the people of Palestine. The only Chamber I ever go into in the entire world where people do not acknowledge that Ireland - the Government and the people of Ireland - are standing with the people of Palestine, standing up for human rights and standing up for international law is here, when you get up and distort with your ideology the actions of this Government. I am proud of the people of this country. I am proud that we went into an election and it did not matter what party you were in; you stood up and said, "We are going to support the people of Palestine." Get beyond yourself with this narrative that you have all the moral authority and we are terrible people. I am disgusted and sickened watching children dying on our television screens. Every day I come to work and work with all people in here to do our best to show leadership at a time of horrific conflict.

Stop our Central Bank selling Israeli bonds then.

There you go. You are at it again. Hold your sign up.

I call Deputy Fitzmaurice.

You cannot work together on anything.

The clock is going.

We will stop the clock.

We want you to work together with us on this. You voted against us last night.

Populist.

I call Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice.