Israel ‘very quickly’ losing support and sympathy around world, Taoiseach tells Dáil

Israel is “very quickly” losing support and sympathy all around the world due to its actions in Gaza, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has told the Dáil.

He said even Israel’s “closest ally”, the United States, was “beginning to have second thoughts about what they’re seeing unfolding in Gaza”.

“That is a strategic disaster for Israel in my view,” Mr Varadkar said on Wednesday.

“They’re making a huge mistake. It’s not just about the humanitarian suffering that’s being imposed on people in Palestine, what the Israeli Government is doing is jeopardising the long-term and medium-term security of the Israeli people.”

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The Taoiseach also said the Government believed the “time has come” for sanctions to be taken with “regards to activities, particularly in the West Bank”.

Mr Varadkar said the Tánaiste Micheál Martin had been liaising with a number of other EU member states in this respect.

“One thing we want to do and work is being done on this, is to impose restrictions and travel bans, particularly on Israeli settlers, those who are causing huge difficulty for the Palestinian population in the West Bank,” he said.

The Taoiseach also said the legal advice was “clear” that trade was an exclusive competence of the European Union, and decisions made in relation to trade and sanctions “can only be made on the basis of consensus or unanimity”.

“So long as there is even one or even two EU countries that don’t want to impose trade sanctions, it’s not open to us to do so,” he said.

Mr Varadkar also said the situation in Gaza was intolerable and “it’s unacceptable to us”. He said he would continue to make the case that Europe needs to change its position in relation to Israel and Palestine to be “less passive, and to push and demand for a two-state solution in the way that we haven’t done in the past”.

The Taoiseach was responding to Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns during Leaders’ Questions, who said more than 18,000 people had now been killed , 75 per cent of them women and children.

“I don’t know how the leaders of self professed civilised countries who have abstained or voted against a ceasefire in the UN can live with their decisions,” she said.

“They have the blood of thousands of innocent people on their hands.”

Ms Cairns also said the credibility of the EU was “long gone” as was its “moral authority”.

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