The Taoiseach should not be handing shamrocks to Joe Biden while he continues to support the ongoing onslaught on Gaza, People Before Profit has said.
Dublin TD Paul Murphy is continuing to call on the Government to take a much stronger stance against Israel.
On Newstalk Breakfast this morning, he urged people all over the country to join this Saturday’s ‘Freedom for Palestine’ national demonstration at the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin.
He again called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador to Ireland and said Taoiseach Leo Varadkar should not be shaking hands with US President Joe Biden while he continues to support Israel’s actions.
It comes after the Leas Ceann Comhairle Catherine Connolly said Ambassador Dana Erlich should be called before the Dáil to account for the "propaganda" she is spreading.
She said she had not previously called for the ambassador’s expulsion but she was now “finding it very difficult to stick with that decision”.
Deputy Murphy told Newstalk that Ireland now “has to take action”.
“The Irish Government has had stronger and stronger words of criticism for Israel as this horror and genocide has unfolded, but the Irish Government has also failed actually do anything to try to stop it – to try and put pressure on Israel to stop it,” he said.
He said the Government must act if it feels, like Minister Simon Coveney does, that Israel is acting like a ‘monster’ and a ‘rogue state’.
“What should happen to states that are behaving like monsters or rogue states?” he asked. “They should be isolated.”
Israel Ambassador
He said Ireland should follow South Africa and Bolivia in expelling the ambassador, “in order to send a message across Europe and the world that we do not stand for this, that this massacre needs to stop, that they must not invade Rafah”.
Deputy Murphy insisted that the move would not stop Israel – but insisted it could add “international pressure”.
“If Ireland became the first European country to expel the ambassador; to say we're not having anything to do with this apartheid, genocidal regime, the thing that will happen the next day is there will be discussion in the Spanish state, there'll be discussion in Belgium, there will be discussion elsewhere,” he said.
Diplomacy
He said the Government’s diplomatic efforts up to this point have not worked.
“We need to build a people power campaign internationally to force every state to do everything that they can to put pressure on Israel to stop,” he said.
“Israel needs to be pressurised; they won't be sweet-talked into stopping.
“So, we should be suspending the EU Israel Association Agreement, we should be expelling the Israeli ambassador and we should not be shaking hands with Joe Biden at a time when he is arming Israel and supporting the genocide.”
“We should not be handing over a bowl of Shamrock to Joe Biden when this could not be happening without his support,” he added.
Palestine
This morning, the Tánaiste Micheál Martin announced €20 million in Irish funding for the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA.
He accused Israel of undermining the UN since the war began – noting that it is “no coincidence” that allegations against UNRWA workers emerged at the same time as South Africa’s case against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Earlier this week, Minister Martin described Israel’s attack on Rafah as ‘absolutely inhumane and unacceptable’.
Yesterday, the Taoiseach joined with the Spanish Prime Minister to urge the EU to urgently “review whether Israel is complying with its human rights obligations”.
In a letter to the European Commission, Leo Varadkar and Pedro Sanchez said the expanded Israeli military operation in Rafah Gaza poses a “grave and imminent threat that the international community must urgently confront”.
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