International community must join the worldwide movement of boycott and sanctions against nakedly apartheid regime
Richard Boyd Barrett TD of People Before Profit has said that the passing of a new law, in the Knesset, defining Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, defining Hebrew as the country’s national language and defining the establishment of Jewish communities as being in the national interest said: “is a blatantly racist move which confirms the apartheid nature of the Israeli State.”
The TD for Dún Laoghaire called on the Irish government, the EU and other international leaders that believe in human rights and are opposed to racism to join the international movement of boycott and sanctions against the “nakedly apartheid state of Israel.”
He said: “This move confirms beyond any doubt that the Israeli regime is a racist and apartheid regime. Netanyahu is not making any pretence about this.
“This disgraceful move further legislates on top of the existing apartheid apparatus that exists in Israel, such as the Israeli law of return which confirms rights on Israelis but denies these rights to Palestinian people or people of Arab origin.
“The fact that Netanyahu this week is standing side by side with the openly racist and xenophobic Victor Orban of Hungary is further confirmation of the dangerous and racist credentials of the Israeli state.
“It is particularly shameful after the horrors of the Holocaust suffered by the Jewish people that the head of Israel would stand side by side with the forces of the far right in Europe that are now echoing the politics that lead to genocide against the Jewish people in the 1930s.
“Our government cannot stand by and allow Israel to act with impunity. Israel cannot be treated as a normal state as long as it denies Palestinians the most basic human rights and pursues racist and apartheid policies. It is an apartheid state that must be challenged by all those who believe in human rights, human decency and anti-racism.”