Irish MP calls for expulsion of Israeli ambassador

LONDON 

The Irish People Before Profit party demanded the Irish Dail, or parliament, support a motion to expel Israel’s ambassador in response to horrific and brutal attacks on the Gaza Strip by occupation forces.

MP Gino Kenny and party spokesman said the time for words and statements has past and action needs to be taken to stop the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip and other occupied territories. Action that also includes boycotting Israel and the apartheid system it set up.

“Israel has reigned terror and murder on the people of Gaza. In eight days, over 200 people have been killed including 60 children, murdered for doing nothing, murdered because they’re Palestinian. The world is watching while the state of Israel conducts collective punishment against the Palestinian people of occupied lands,” Kenny said in an impassioned speech in parliament.

“When is the right time to expel the Israeli ambassador to Ireland. If it's not now Taoiseach [prime minister], when is the time? This has been going on for generations where the Israeli government with impunity has murdered and caused terror to the Palestinian people. We in Ireland should know we have been occupied, brutalized by another oppressor. So when is the time to expel the Israeli ambassador and show solidarity to the world and Palestinian people,” he added.

The motion, according to Kenny, would pressure the government, including Foreign and Defense minister Simon Coveney to take concrete action to stand up for the besieged and occupied people of Gaza and send of a message of solidarity that Israel’s crimes against humanity will not go unnoticed. It would also send a message to the people of Palestine that they are not alone and that they have the people of Ireland to support them.

He pointed to Ireland’s unique position on the UN Security Council and said it could use its diplomatic prowess to create meaningful change and send a message to Israel and the world that such crimes will not go unpunished. It would also signal that work is being done to bring Israel to account for its gross human rights abuses.

Despite growing calls for the ambassador to be expelled, the Foreign Ministry ruled out the move, arguing that expulsion “won’t save a single Palestinian child or Israeli” and if the ambassador should leave, the government would not have any channels for communication.

“The idea that you advance, the argument that you’re making in refusing to talk to a government or ambassador is flawed. That’s not how international [diplomacy] works,” Coveney said in a statement last weekend.

The occupied and besieged Gaza Strip has entered a second week of indiscriminate and brutal deadly attacks by Israeli ground and air forces.

Israeli forces have demolished entire residential and office towers, one of which belonged to Al Jazeera and The Associated Press, an act considered a war crime by rights groups.