Middle East Dail Éireann — 2022-05-19 ============================================================ Paul Murphy (PBP), Dublin South-West The Tánaiste and the Government have condemned the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh, but listen to the spokesperson for the Israeli military, Ran Kochav. He said she was filming and working for a media outlet amid armed Palestinians and stated, "They’re armed with cameras, if you’ll permit me to say so". They see journalists as being armed with cameras because the truth of the apartheid state and the oppression of Palestinians being beamed to the world is a weapon against the establishment in Israel. It is better to have words of condemnation than not, but is the Government going to do anything? The simplest action it could take is to say that, on the basis of the fact that this is an apartheid state and in view of its horrendous assault, using batons and stun grenades, on a funeral, IDA Ireland is going to remove its business development office. Surely there have to be consequences for these actions by Israel? --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2022-05-19/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:50:28+00:00 Sitting date: 2022-05-19