Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 7 mins.)

A rally today outside the Israeli Embassy in Dublin heard Palestinian speakers and an Irish socialist TD (Member of the Irish Parliament) denounce Israel’s attacks on Palestinians, its slaughter of civilians including children and women, call for sanctions against Israel and for its Ambassador to be expelled. The rally was jointly organised by Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Trinity BDS Campaign in solidarity with the Palestinians and with the general strike organised in Palestine.

Fatin Al Tamimi, Chair of the IPSC, opened the meeting, welcoming people and, to loud cheers, declared that she is “a Palestinian and proud to be a Palestinian”.  Fatin went on to list the numbers of Palestinians dead and injured, the numbers of those who were women and children and called the Israeli regime “racist, apartheid” and murderous and called for the boycott of Israeli goods, alluding to the famous 1970s Dunne’s Stores workers’ strike in support of boycott of South African goods during the white minority apartheid regime.  Fatin’s pauses were punctuated by demonstrators chanting “Free, free Palestine!” and “Boycott Israel!”  At one point she said that she had children born here but they would also always be Palestinian and she hoped one day to go back and to welcome all the Irish supporter to a free Palestine, which brought a tremendous cheer from the crowd.

She introduced Wesam Ahmed, from Al Haq, the main Palestine human rights organisation, who spoke through an audio link from Palestine.

Dr. Ibrahim Natil, a DCU academic also spoke, as did Zayd, representing Trinity BDS Campaign.

All the speakers called for stepping up of solidarity action, boycott, divestment and sanctions but also for action by the Irish government, both in their current temporary membership of the United Nations Security Council and in the EU.

Richard Boyd Barrett TD told the crowd that he and Gino Kelly and Paul Murphy had all tackled Mícheál Martin in the Dáil (Irish Parliament) earlier during Taoiseach’s Questions and Martin had claimed he had criticised Israel while also criticising the rockets fired by Hamas.  Boyd Barrett said that we had to get rid of this discourse of equivalence because there is no equivalence between the positions of the Israeli Zionists and the Palestinians, neither in terms of justice nor in power, military or otherwise.

Fatin Tamimi also called for solidarity with all the Palestinian political prisoners

GARDA HARASSMENT CONTINUES

The Irish police, the Gardaí continued to display on Tuesday the hostility they had exhibited in advance of last Saturday’s demonstration, when they threatened the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign that if they went ahead with their advertised rally the Gardaí would intervene and threatened the organisers with €5,000 fines and possible jail sentences.  Fortunately the Trinity BDS Campaign group had stepped in and held the rally, which turned into a march supported by several thousand.

The Gardaí began on Tuesday by telling supporters as they arrived that they were required to spread out to social distancing but were soon ushering people in towards one another.  A woman next to me complained to a Garda that he was moving her into close proximity with other people and violation of social distancing — the Garda shrugged.  As they continued to urge people to push in towards the already crowded space, the Gardaí continually urged traffic to come through and kept repeating to rally supporters that “The road is open”.  Indeed it was and the question is why was it open?  Clearly forcing traffic through put people in danger of vehicle impact or Covid19 infection; the safest measure and easily enough done would have been to divert the traffic before it reached the rally.  But no — the Palestinian solidarity supporters were to be shown that the Gardaí are not to be gainsaid.

PLACARDS

I find it interesting to collect some photos of the placards displayed at these events and in particular, some of the homemade ones.  These are interesting in a number of ways, some humorous, some very pointed, some quite artistic but they are all also individual expressions and a kind of commitment, to make something in advance to bring to the demonstration or rally.

There was one in Irish but sadly the only one I could find.  Will there be more at the next demonstration? If the Irish language is not audible and visible in the progressive sector of society, how are we to expect it to survive, never mind thrive?

A SPACE FOR THE YOUTH

As the rally came to an end, one could observe Palestinian and some other youth, many in their teens coming together to chat but also to chant slogans.  I have seen this before and it appears that this point in events is their space — but it is a dangerous one with the event formally ended and the organisers dispersing, making it easier for repressive moves to be made against them or also to be led into acts which may end in their arrest.  Of course it is the organisers dispersing, adults socialising etc that also allows them to make it their space. 

The youth need a space of their own but one which is also safe and in which they can be helped to consider consequences and effective action.  Generally political organisations do not give the youth that space and, when they do, tend to confine them to following the line of the leaders, who are generally much older.

If organisations do not provide those spaces and assist the youth in self-organising, the likelihood is that others will and, in the case of Palestinians or Arabs in general, those others may be Islamic fundamentalists.

RALLY AGAIN NEXT SATURDAY, 2pm at the Spire, Dublin.

POSTSCRIPT COMMENT:

There is a slight sense of futility in what speakers ask us to do because justified as the calls are, there seems little hope of convincing most of our politicians of breaking radically with the western imperialist alliance, even though Ireland is not, generally speaking, itself an imperialist country.  And yes, we can continue boycotting but how much of the stock in the supermarkets continues to be from Israel?  And when it is, if one supermarket comes under heavy pressure, the management will often just temporarily remove the products from the targeted shop while they continue to be sold in the others.  And once the pressure is off, the produce might be back on the shelves.  And even if they’re not ….  What can we actually DO that will make a real difference?  

In one way, nothing, since the USA is the main backer of the Zionist state and the USA is the world’s major superpower.  But in another way, we are making a difference, though it is not easy to see sometimes.  Despite our rulers, Ireland has become the most pro-Palestinian country in Europe.  Out of that may come great things in the future.

But it seems to me that there is more that we could do.  Many Irish trade unions formally support the Palestinians — could they not put a motion in their annual conferences calling on the Government to expel the Ambassador?  Could they not at least put a pro-Palestinian poster on each workplace union noticeboard and also advertise each solidarity march?  I know that the unions are not anything like the fighting organisations they once were but that above is surely not asking too much.

end.