MINISTER FOR foreign affairs Micheál Martin says calls to expel the Israeli ambassador to Ireland are “misguided and counter-productive”.
Fianna Fáil TD Chris Andrews has said the ambassador, Dr Zion Evrony, should be expelled.
Speaking at the Oireachtas European affairs committee yesterday, the Minister said: “I would regards calls for the withdrawal or expulsion of ambassadors as misguided and counter-productive.”
However, Mr Martin said he had asked Israeli representatives to reflect on why people were making these calls. He said the EU must now consider the implications of the situation in Gaza for the proposed “upgrade of relations” with Israel, which was agreed in principle by the European Council in December.
“It cannot simply be a case of business as usual, in terms of now progressing with an upgrade in our relations with Israel,” he said.
Mr Martin said he had been consistent in condemning Israel “for initiating such a large-scale military operation in Gaza, one of the most densely populated enclaves on the planet, and for its disproportionate response to the undoubted provocation presented by the firing of rockets from Gaza into southern Israel by Hamas”.
Mr Martin said he hoped US president Barack Obama would give priority to the relaunch of the Middle East peace process.
Fianna Fáil Senator Terry Leyden called for a trade boycott of Israel. “Every import you buy from Israel is providing a bullet or a bomb to murder Palestinians,” he said.
Describing Israel’s recent behaviour in Gaza as “unforgivable”, he said: “It was a Holocaust, there’s no doubt about it.”
Committee chairman Bernard Durkan, of Fine Gael, said the invasion of Gaza was “unnecessary, unwarranted and unwise” but “it was not a Holocaust and these comparisons are ill-made”.
Labour TD Joe Costello said the EU must be more robustly involved in the Middle East, “rather than leaving it to the US”.
Independent Senator Feargal Quinn welcomed the Minister’s comments as “moderate”, but claimed his previous remarks “seemed to me aimed directly and only at Israel”.
The Palestinian delegate general to Ireland, Dr Hikmat Ajjuri, also addressed the committee.
He described Israeli actions in Gaza as “indiscriminate” in nature.
“The great losses prove that the real targets of the Israelis are not ‘extremists’ or their weapons but the will and the resolve of all Palestinians,” he said.
“The shameful and unacceptable silence of world leaders is, to a certain extent, responsible for the pain the inhabitants of the Holy Land, Israelis and Palestinians alike, have endured for decades.”
