Ireland has become the first EU country to formally designate Israeli settlement expansion as “annexation” of Palestinian land. The Irish parliament, the Dáil, said so in a motion passed unanimously on Wednesday (26 May). “The scale, pace, and strategic nature of Israel’s actions on settlement expansion and the intent behind it have brought us to a point where we need to be honest about what is actually happening on the ground … it is de facto annexation,” Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney also told MPs in a debate on Tuesday prior to voting. “This is not something that I, or...