Sir, – Addressing the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs on behalf of the Ireland-Israel Alliance, Alan Shatter bemoans the alleged "incapacity of people on the Palestinian side to constructively engage" with Israeli leaders ("Alan Shatter claims 'apartheid' over Palestinians a 'big lie'", News, April 6th).
But what kind of constructive engagement does Mr Shatter propose in response to declarations by successive Israeli prime ministers that there will never be a Palestinian state on their watch, or in response to the 2018 Nation-State Bill which identifies the expansion of colonial settlements as “a national value” which the Israeli state “will labour to encourage and promote”?
Mr Shatter’s astonishing claim that “the settlements are not the obstacle to a resolution of all of this” is gravely at odds with political consensus in Ireland, as demonstrated by last year’s overwhelming Dáil Éireann motion which identified the Israeli state’s settlement project as amounting to “de facto annexation”.
Amnesty International’s thoroughly documented report concurs with earlier reports by Human Rights Watch, the Israeli NGOs B’Tselem and Yesh Din, and of course numerous Palestinian human rights bodies. It is high time that our Government acknowledged the growing consensus among human rights organisations, recognised that the Israeli state does indeed practise the crime of apartheid, and took strong measures accordingly. There is nothing to be gained by the appeasement of expansionist states. – Yours, etc,
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BRIAN Ó ÉIGEARTAIGH,
Donnybrook,
Dublin 4.