This week both the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste claimed that Ireland is doing “everything we can” to respond to the unfolding genocide in Gaza. In Dáil statements, press briefings, and replies to parliamentary questions, they’ve insisted that Ireland is using “all the tools at our disposal.”
But that simply isn’t true.
Because the truth is that this Government is actively blocking the most meaningful political, legal and diplomatic tools available to the Irish State – tools that could help hold Israel to account and show real solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Chief among those is the Occupied Territories Bill – a piece of legislation which would prohibit trade with illegal settlements in occupied territories. Both the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste explicitly committed during the last general election campaign that they would support the Bill if in government. Yet since taking office, they have done the opposite. They have blocked its progress at every turn. They have allowed EU trade deals with Israel to continue unchallenged. They have refused to stop the use of Irish airspace and Irish ports for the transport of weapons to Israel – even as the death toll in Gaza exceeds 52,000, with famine now deliberately imposed on a captive civilian population.
Following a series of parliamentary questions I submitted to Tánaiste Simon Harris – who also holds the Foreign Affairs brief – and after listening to the Taoiseach’s response to an impassioned plea from Deputy Catherine Connolly during Leaders’ Questions, it is now absolutely clear that this Government has no intention of taking meaningful action. They offer words. But they block every lever of action that would give those words weight.
Instead, the Tánaiste has chosen to introduce the IHRA working definition of antisemitism – a deeply flawed document that, in other countries, has been used to ban academic speakers, cancel literature festivals, silence journalists and criminalise peaceful protest. The Israeli Embassy and its supporters have used that very definition to smear the Occupied Territories Bill as “antisemitic”. And now, the same Government that blocks that Bill has given them a new tool to shut down criticism.
Let’s be clear: opposing Israeli apartheid is not antisemitic. Speaking out against colonisation and ethnic cleansing is not hate speech. It is an act of solidarity – and it is the duty of anyone who claims to stand for justice.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have both warned the United Nations not to adopt this definition, citing specific examples where it was used to suppress Palestinian advocacy. Yet Minister Harris has chosen to press ahead with it, without introducing any corresponding definition to address anti-Palestinian racism – despite its prevalence in Israeli political discourse, in right-wing US rhetoric, and in the international media.
Last month, the Government welcomed US Congressman Brian Mast to Ireland – a man who has openly stated that all Palestinians, including children, are “legitimate targets.” He has compared Palestinians to Nazis. And he has advocated for the starvation of women, children, the infirm and the injured in Gaza. His rhetoric is genocidal – and yet the Irish Government rolled out the red carpet.
Meanwhile, cinemas have been stopped from showing films about Gaza. Palestinian literature festivals have been cancelled. Academics have been barred from speaking. Cultural events are under pressure. Peaceful protest is being criminalised. Just this month in Germany, EU citizens – including an Irish national – were threatened with deportation for peacefully demonstrating in support of Palestine. And here in Ireland, the adoption of the IHRA definition opens the door to similar repression. Israeli propagandists and apologists for genocide have mobilised to pressure institutions, intimidate public figures, and smear those who speak up – including a coordinated and deeply cynical attack on the President of Ireland following his very reasonable and human comments calling for peace, justice and restraint.
The effect of the Tánaiste’s decision is already being felt. Palestinian voices are being marginalised. Acts of solidarity are being smeared. And far from standing up to this wave of censorship, the Irish Government is actively enabling it.
This is not leadership. This is cowardice dressed up in diplomacy.
Ireland has always claimed to stand on the side of the oppressed. We speak of our history with pride – but that pride must come with purpose. We know what colonialism is. We know what it means to be dispossessed, denigrated, impoverished, and cleared off our land. We know what brutality is. And we know that starvation has long been a weapon used by colonisers.
Our people remember what it means to be treated as less than human. We carry the memory of Famine, of eviction, of violence and of erasure. That experience gives us a special responsibility to speak up now – not with empty words, but with action.
I asked the Tánaiste directly this week whether he believed that Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank amounted to a new wave of ethnic cleansing – and what steps he would take to confront it. His answer? “Ireland is using all the tools at our disposal – political, legal, diplomatic and humanitarian.”
That statement does not stand up to scrutiny.
Where is the political action when the Occupied Territories Bill is still blocked?
Where is the legal action when the EU-Israel preferential trade agreement remains untouched – despite its violation of the human rights clause?
Where is the diplomatic pressure when Irish airspace and seas are being used to facilitate the arming of a regime committing genocide?
And where is the moral clarity when those who defend Palestinian lives are smeared – while those who justify their deaths are embraced?
The Government’s position is not neutral. It is not careful diplomacy. It is complicity.
The Government says it is on the side of the Palestinian people – but their actions show otherwise. They are on the wrong side of history – and the wrong side of the Irish people.
So what do we do?
We act. We organise. We speak out.
Support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Lobby your TDs and Senators. Demand the immediate enactment of the Occupied Territories Bill. Demand the suspension of the EU-Israel trade agreement. Demand that Irish airspace and seas are closed to the arms trade.
Make it impossible for this Government to ignore the demands of the Irish people for real, meaningful solidarity with Palestine.
And never, ever stop speaking about Palestine. Never stop naming the genocide. Never stop calling for justice.
Conor D. McGuinness TD 