The Government should impose sanctions on Israel in the same way Éamon de Valera did on Italy in 1935 for a “genocidal assault which claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Ethiopians”.
People Before Profit leader Richard Boyd Barrett made the call as he cited the late former taoiseach and Italy’s imperialist invasion as he introduced his party’s Sanctions against the State of Israel Bill, which calls for Ireland to “break off all economic trade, financial relations with the state of Israel”.
De Valera “felt it was Ireland’s duty as a former colony to impose sanctions on Italy for committing genocide against people in Africa. Surely the Irish Government” could do the same and “impose sanctions on the genocidal state of Israel,” he said in the Dáil.
He spoke of his experience in Israel when he went there as an 18-year-old and “literally stumbled on the first Palestinian intifada and I was horrified”.
At the time there was “no armed resistance by Palestinians” who were living in refugee camps all their lives, members of families who had been driven out in 1948, he said.
