Elections must be held soon in Palestine, Tánaiste tells Abbas

Tánaiste Micheál Martin has “made it clear” to President Mahmoud Abbas that elections should be held soon in the Palestinian territories.

During a meeting with Mr Abbas in the headquarters of the Palestinian Authorities in Ramallah on Wednesday, Mr Martin, who is also the Minister for Foreign Affairs, pressed for the need for a timeline for holding elections which have not taken place in over 15 years.

“It is our view that elections should be held. The last democratic elections within Palestinian territory was 2006. That means people in their early 30s have not voted for their representatives for the Palestinian authorities. That is not good and not acceptable,” Mr Martin said.

It is the position of Mr Abbas that elections cannot take place unless Palestinians in the territory of East Jerusalem, which is controlled by Israel, can be facilitated to vote. The Israeli Government has refused to do this, he said.

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During his visit to the West Bank on Wednesday, Mr Martin also held several meetings with UN agencies and charities and was briefed on increasing levels of violence by Israeli settlers and security forces against Palestinians.

According to statistics from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 174 Palestinians were killed by Israelis in the first half of 2023, two and a half times higher than the same period last year.

Twenty four Israelis, including six children, were killed in Palestinian attacks during the same period.

Mr Martin was briefed that growing numbers of Palestinian communities are being forced to move due to settler violence or the threat of violence. He said he met a father and son from a Bedouin community who are under threat of displacement from “very severe intimidatory violence from settlers where historically there hadn’t been any settlers.

“The child described how his school was attacked and children had to run for this safety,” Mr Martin said. In the last two years in particular “there has been a significant increase in the number of these attacks” which are designed to push Palestinians off their lands, he said.

The Tánaiste said there is a duty on Israel to protect Palestinian residents and enforce the rule of law.

Regarding Hamas, a militant organisation which is the de facto government of the Palestinian territory of Gaza, Mr Martin said it must completely give up violence before Ireland and the EU will engage with it.

It is Irish and EU policy not to deal directly with Hamas which has been designated a terrorist organisation. All Irish funding to Gaza is channelled through the UN.

Mr Martin was asked why Ireland and the EU continues to refuse to deal with Hamas, while being happy to deal with the Israeli Government, which includes members convicted of supporting terrorism.

He said Hamas has to cease attacks on Israel before there can be any change to EU policy. “One of the clear preconditions of the Irish peace process was that everyone lay down their arms and everyone cease violent activity,” said Mr Martin, speaking in the Palestinian city Ramallah in the West Bank.

“Fundamentally we would call on Hamas to 100 per cent go political and stop the use of violence. I don’t believe policy should change in that respect from an EU perspective.”

He added the influence of Iran, a major Hamas funder, is “problematic”.

On Thursday, the Tánaiste travels to Jordan to meet its deputy leader during the final leg of his Middle East visit.