Foreign Affairs Committee: The EU should suspend trade links with Israel until the "illegal aspects of the wall" with the West Bank were removed, Fianna Fáil TD Michael Mulcahy told the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday.
Mr Mulcahy (Dublin South Central) said during a discussion on the Middle East that it was "time to bite the bullet" on the issue of the wall and those parts of it that were built on occupied territory, outside the so-called Green Line marking the 1967 border between Israel and the West Bank.
Fine Gael spokesman on foreign affairs Bernard Allen said the structure in question could not be called by another name: "It's not a separation barrier; it's a wall as savage as the Berlin Wall."
The Cork North Central TD added that the lack of access to Christian sites in the Bethlehem area "shouldn't be tolerated by the international community".
Fianna Fáil TD Pat Carey (Dublin North West) expressed concern at suggestions that a report on the position of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, commissioned under the British presidency, was being "buried. That's not what we want to hear." If there was a "cover-up" this issue should be addressed, he added.
Labour's foreign affairs spokesman Michael D Higgins said Israel had played a "con trick" because at the same time as settlers were being withdrawn from Gaza, there was large-scale expansion on the West Bank.
The EU should appoint a representative to monitor the human rights clauses in its association agreement with Israel, added Mr Higgins.
"The wall is a horrendous thing," said Senator David Norris (Independent), adding that it destroyed co-operation between Arab and Israeli. He expressed concern about the stated policies of Hamas. "If Hamas continues with the position that it has, then it will make of its own people international outlaws."
The committee heard submissions and recommendations from Christian Aid, Trócaire, the Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem and the Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.
Sarit Michaeli of B'Tselem said there was an increasing "cantonisation" of the West Bank into five areas as a result of Israeli actions, with limited access between them.
Hamdi Shaqqura of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said, despite the "so-called disengagement", Gaza was occupied territory controlled by Israel.