EU-Israel Association Agreement: Motion
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-28
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Joe Conway (IND), Cultural and Educational Panel

I am delighted to see this motion and fully support it. For my small part, I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, to the Chamber again. Those of us who are occasionally privileged to read a more moderate publication from Israel, the reasonably liberal daily paper Haaretz , are aware of the public opinion that exists in the State of Israel among what we might call the ordinary people. The ordinary people by and large are more consumed with security than they are about rights and long-term effects. Fifty years ago, outside the gates of these Houses you would have had people protesting against the apartheid regime in South Africa. I was one of those soldiers outside the gates at the time. We were all depressed because we could see no possible solution to apartheid. The white minority held all the aces and all the armaments and were convinced that their security was going to come out of the barrel of a gun. Of course, because of the luminary, visionary Mandela and the tide of events, that all changed. I am reading Roy Jenkins's biography of William Ewart Gladstone at the moment. It is hard to understand that a man who was called an old brute by his sovereign, Queen Victoria, could be so liberally disposed towards the Irish question. That was probably to his own great political detriment. It means in our case that Gladstone was hugely instrumental in the independence drive in Ireland as well. I do not think we should be depressed by what we see, but we should be depressed about what we see as the enablers of Israel. Probably the greatest enabler of Israel is the current President of the United States. Just like President Nixon and Mrs. Thatcher were the enablers of the South African regime in the 1970s, Israel will be enabled by people who see self-interest in the Middle East and stand rigidly by it. That is profoundly depressing. At the same time, we saw the Israeli embassy here being closed down, and we know how famously thin-skinned the governments of Israel are in light of that.
Some people might say that was gesture politics but it is very important that we do such things, including those set out in the motion, because they get under the skin of the Israeli Government. Such measures do not go very far but I really encourage them because they have an effect on public opinion and on Government opinion in Israel.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-28/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:01+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-28