Sanction Israel Now! Dáil votes tonight on bill to sanction Israel.

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]made a small taste of the absolute lawlessness of the Israeli regime.

[00:00:08]Kidnapped in international waters for doing nothing more than trying to bring aid to the beleaguered besieged people of Gaza. Kidnapped, detained, and I think probably most people at this stage have seen THE VIDEO OF BEN GVIR, AN ISRAELI MINISTER, LORDING IT OVER PROTESTERS, handcuffing them with their hands behind THEIR BACK, AND PUTTING THEM IN STRESS POSITIONS, endangering their health and well-being, and doing it in full in full view, torturing the protesters, doing it brazenly in front of the world.

[00:00:52]AND YOU CAN ONLY IMAGINE WHAT THEY DO WHEN THEY'RE NOT on camera, WHAT THEY DO BEHIND THE SCENES.

[00:00:59]And what they have done to tens of thousands of Palestinian prisoners FOR YEARS.

[00:01:05]AS THE AL-HAQ REPORT ON THE TREATMENT OF PRISONERS HAS COME OUT RECENTLY, THE USE OF TORTURE, SEXUAL VIOLENCE, and rape against Palestinian prisoners has now BECOME ROUTINE. BEN GVIR, THE MAN TAUNTING THOSE HE'S KIDNAPPED ON THE HIGH SEAS FROM THE FLOTILLA, GETS AS A BIRTHDAY PRESENT FROM HIS WIFE A NOOSE TO CELEBRATE FOR HIS BIRTHDAY, THEIR PLAN TO EXECUTE specifically Palestinians who are engaged in resistance against THE GENOCIDAL APARTHEID REGIME AND THE ILLEGAL and brutal occupation of their lands.

[00:01:50]This is the sick mentality we're dealing with. THESE ARE THE SICK PEOPLE WHO NOW >> [screaming] >> HAVE IN THEIR DETENTION THOSE HEROIC people of the flotilla but far a far more greater importance than it everybody will say including those on the flotilla is this is just a small glimpse of THE BRUTALITY THE HORROR THE BARBARISM THAT is inflicted DAY IN DAY OUT MONTH IN month out year in YEAR OUT FOR DECADES against the people of Palestine by this brutal genocidal and apartheid regime.

[00:02:36]So isn't it ISN'T IT LONG BEYOND beyond time that those are sanctions sanctions imposed ON THIS REGIME?

[00:02:47]>> [cheering] [applause] >> SO TONIGHT FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE DáIL THERE WILL be before the TDs THE OPPORTUNITY TO VOTE on comprehensive economic financial and trade sanctions on the Israeli state itself.

[00:03:13]FRANCES BLACK BILL WHICH THE GOVERNMENT PROMISED BUT HAVE RENEGED ON THAT PROMISE PROPOSE SANCTIONS FOR THE ILLEGAL OCCUPATION OF THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES AND WE'RE STILL HERE DEMANDING THAT FRANCES BILL IS PASSED AND THAT THE GOVERNMENT HONOR THE PROMISE THEY MADE ALTHOUGH I THINK ALL OF US IN FRANCES will now appear and we're GOING TO BE TALKING ABOUT OUR BILL AND WE'RE ALREADY WORRIED THAT DESPITE MAKING THAT PROMISE THEY'VE NO INTENTION OF KEEPING IT OR SEEKING TO DILUTE THE BILL if they even pass it at all and I've already indicated they're going to vote against the sanctions bill tonight.

[00:03:58]It's criminal.

[00:04:00]All right, and there's a lot of people who are going to get up and say a few words.

[00:04:04]Uh so, I don't want to say too much more.

[00:04:07]Except that it is important that you're HERE TO PUT PRESSURE on them.

[00:04:11]And uh they are using legal excuses to justify why they're not supporting this bill tonight. But they are ABSOLUTE NONSENSE.

[00:04:22]NONSENSE! ABSOLUTE LIES THAT COVER up their shameful complicity with Israel's crimes. THEY SAY THEY'RE PROHIBITED FROM PASSING this bill because it has to be done through the European Union.

[00:04:38]Now, FIRST OF ALL, LIES! SPAIN AND SCANDINAVIA HAVE ALREADY PASSED BILLS SIMILAR TO THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES BILL. THEY HAVE DONE SO UNILATERALLY. THERE'S NO NO REASON WHATSOEVER the Irish government can't impose sanctions unilaterally. And they can argue, and I believe WOULD HAVE AN UNANSWERABLE CASE IN FRONT of any European court, THAT THEIR OBLIGATIONS UNDER THE GENOCIDE CONVENTION, a convention WHICH WAS PUT TOGETHER IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE NAZI HOLOCAUST, IS A GREATER OBLIGATION THAN ANY OBLIGATIONS THEY HAVE TO EUROPEAN UNION OR EUROPEAN PARTNERS.

[00:05:21]>> [applause] >> SO, THESE ARE ALL LIES TO TO TO COVER UP THEIR COMPLICITY.

[00:05:27]AND WE ALL KNOW THE COMPLICITY. US MILITARY ALLOWED TO TRANSIT UH FLIGHT THROUGH OUR AIRSPACE TRANSPORTING WEAPONS TO ISRAEL. THE CENTRAL BANK FACILITATING THE SALE OF bonds which have been used by Israel to raise funds to COMMIT THE GENOCIDE TO SUSTAIN UH THE APARTHEID?

[00:05:51]AND >> [screaming] >> IRELAND IS ONE OF THE BIGGEST TRADING NATIONS IN THE EUROPEAN Union with THE ISRAELI REGIME.

[00:06:03]BUT IF ALL OF THAT ISN'T ENOUGH, we find out this week THANKS TO NEIL SOUTHERN FROM the Currency Magazine THAT IN 2024, IN THE MIDST OF THE GENOCIDE AND SLAUGHTER AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF GAZA, THE IRISH GOVERNMENT APPROVED 20 MILLION EURO OF MILITARY EXPORTS to the Israeli MILITARY THEMSELVES.

[00:06:34]A PREVIOUS similar exports.

[00:06:37]SO, THEY CAN'T SAY THEY DIDN'T KNOW.

[00:06:39]IT WAS MULTIPLES OF ANY SIMILAR EXPORTS that had gone to the IDF.

[00:06:44]The fact that THEY WERE EXPORTING ANYTHING TO THE IDF for years is shameful. BUT IN 2023 AND THEN 2024, THOSE EXPORTS JUMPED BY HUNDREDS OF PERCENTAGES FROM ABOUT A MILLION EURO A YEAR TO 20 MILLION IN 2024 DIRECT TO THE IDF WHILE THEY WERE RAINING DOWN DEATH, DESTRUCTION, AND MAYHEM ON THE PEOPLE OF GAZA. It's unbelievable. IT'S UNBELIEVABLE.

[00:07:16]SO, THAT'S WHY IT'S IMPORTANT AND WHATEVER HAPPENS TONIGHT, WE'RE GOING TO KEEP UP THIS FIGHT.

[00:07:24]>> [applause] >> SO, I'M GOING TO INTRODUCE SPEAKERS. We've had We've HAD FANTASTIC SUPPORT FOR THE BILL.

[00:07:35]And maybe the speakers could come up. I see a few of them standing up close to me. We have speakers from the flotilla organizers.

[00:07:43]we've got support from all the most Sorry, I should say most of the opposition parties and groups, my own technical group, the Labour Party, Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats, Solidarity, and all the left-wing independents. The IPSC will be speaking and many, many others. Against war movements and many, many Palestine groups, UH FOR PALESTINE AND MOTHERS AGAINST Genocide group, many, many. We'll try and name a few more and then I'm glad to want to shut up and get on to speakers.

[00:08:19]But thank you all. I see there's people from Germany and Scotland and many parts of the country have come down as well. THANK YOU ALL.

[00:08:28]>> [applause] >> YEAH, AND I THINK THE MAN WHO'S HERE MAYBE CUZ HE'S GOING TO speak as well about the need to boycott the Israel Ireland soccer game. And he's someone who's been leading that fight. So, if you see him somewhere here, I'm hoping he'll be saying a few words.

[00:08:48]Stop the game!

[00:08:50]Stop the game. We'll be talking about those over the course of the protest.

[00:08:53]But if I can introduce first Fatima Houlihan, you all know her very, very well. A Palestinian who has been at the center of leading the fight for sanctions, for advocacy for Palestinian self-determination and freedom. A essential figure of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign and a great friend and comrade. So, PLEASE WELCOME FATIMA HOULIHAN.

[00:09:22]GOOD EVENING, ALL.

[00:09:23]>> [applause] >> I'M STANDING HERE not only a representative of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which I'm very proud of, but as a Palestinian woman carrying a heavy and bleeding heart.

[00:09:39]While I am standing safely here, my family is being my family is being torn apart by apartheid Israeli torture.

[00:09:53]My sister and her beautiful family survived the genocide in Gaza.

[00:10:03]But the trauma But the trauma and the destruction they have endured are beyond words.

[00:10:12]But they are still trapped in Gaza till this day.

[00:10:16]At the same very time, my aunts and cousins in the living under brutal military occupation in the occupied territories built in Hebron and Al-Khalil.

[00:10:31]They are facing daily harassment, checkpoints, and terror.

[00:10:39]No one is safe in Palestine, and no one is spared.

[00:10:46]Monstrous Israel are killing innocent people, not only in Palestine, in Lebanon as well.

[00:10:54]And now, terrorist Israel is kidnapping the brave people of the Freedom Flotilla in international water in a grave violation of international law.

[00:11:06]Piracy is committed in broad daylight, and the world is doing nothing.

[00:11:16]These activists are risking their lives to break the siege and bring aid to the starving people of Gaza because of the governments have completely failed to do so.

[00:11:30]Have completely failed to end the genocide and end this injustice.

[00:11:37]Israel has shown the world time and time again that it does not care about international law.

[00:11:47]It acts with utter and absolute impunity.

[00:11:53]Why?

[00:11:55]Why is Israel allowed to do all this?

[00:11:59]Why?

[00:12:00]Why are they permitted to carry over to carry out killings, ethnic cleansing, occupation, genocide, and now kidnapping humanitarians in international law?

[00:12:16]Why?

[00:12:19]Why does Israel get to break every single international law with total and absolute impunity? Why? I can't understand.

[00:12:32]How much longer must we wait and to to watch this slaughter before the world said enough?

[00:12:43]And what is our government here doing?

[00:12:47]What What have they done till now?

[00:12:50]Nothing.

[00:12:55]We have marched.

[00:12:56]We have lobbied.

[00:13:00]We have cried and we have pleaded.

[00:13:04]But the Irish government tells us that their hands are tied.

[00:13:09]They are carrying weapons of destruction to to use Shannon Airport and Irish airspace.