| Daly wants to test the Foreign Ministers real mettle in debate on Palestine - Where does the Government actually Stand? |
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Senator Daly has consistently called for a debate on this issue, last citing it when speaking following the fifth anniversary of the capture and imprisonment of an Israeli Soldier, Gilad Shalit, who was held in “inhumane conditions within the Gaza Strip” last week. The Senator wants the debate held before end of the Seanad session, before the UN puts a resolution to a vote. I support Senator Eugene Regan's point about the situation in the Holy Land. The Israeli ambassador and the representative from Fatah appeared before the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and to say it was a full and frank exchange of views is putting it mildly. To be balanced, I told the Fatah representative that their problem was that they were corrupt in the extreme and this was the reason they lost the support of their own people. The Israeli ambassador eventually admitted that there was a phosphorus element in the shells the Israelis were using in Gaza. I am pleased to report that at a subsequent meeting of the Joint Committee on European Affairs, Fianna Fáil Deputies Timmy Dooley and Michael Mulcahy proposed that the European Union and the United Nations Secretary General should compile a report on human rights abuses in Israel and Palestine and if human rights abuses were confirmed, Article 2 of our preferential trade agreement with Israel would be invoked and its preferential trade arrangements with the EU would be withdrawn. I regret that Fine Gael did not support the Fianna Fáil motion. Next month, I will put down the exact motion again at the EU-Mediterranean economic forum meeting. I hope we will get some support from the Opposition on that occasion.
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