Facing genocide in the land of meaningless gestures

Our politicians have failed to match the mood of the Irish people when it comes to the genocide in Gaza, writes Ciaran Tierney (ciarantierney.com).

A few weeks ago, the affable presenter of the main talk show on my local radio station gave me an early morning call. He was excited, enthusiastic.

He wanted me to come on air to express my opinion on what was set to be a significant day. Ireland was about to recognise the state of Palestine.

He was amazed that I didn’t seem to share his joy.

Surely this was a significant development, a culmination of months and years of campaigning by Irish people who have been outraged by the ethnic cleansing of Palestine for decades.

He was taken aback when I said it was too little, too late, and that it didn’t really mean anything.

Not while more than 700,000 settlers are living with impunity on occupied land. And settlements are continuing to be built in defiance of international law.

Not when houses, schools, and hospitals were being bombed on an almost daily basis in the Gaza Strip, where people have been living under a blockade since 2007.

I told him that my Palestinian friends would hardly jump out of bed celebrating that Ireland, Norway and Spain had suddenly decided to “recognise the state of Palestine”.

They had long since learned that the international community would fail to act as Israel crossed one red line after another.

This, after all, is Ireland. The former colony where our political leaders make the right noises without ever doing anything concrete to stand up to bullies and war criminals.

Long before last October, Irish politicians knew that people in the West Bank were living under a discriminatory dual legal system which privileges 700,000 illegal settlers over the indigenous population.

They knew that people in Gaza were living in a prison, as attempts by ordinary Irish people, activists, coaches and parents, to bring children from a football academy to Ireland were thwarted by Israel year after year.

This is Ireland, the “neutral” country where US military machines stop off on their way to and from the Middle East, while the US gives Israel billions of dollars to carry out war crimes.

And nobody knows what is being carried in those military planes.

The country which was set to become the first in the world to pass a bill to ban the sale of goods from illegal settlements, only for the bill to be blocked during the talks which led to the formation of the current government in 2020.

Never mind the fact that both the Dáil and the Seanad, both houses of the Irish parliament, had majorities in favour of the Occupied Territories Bill when they were asked to vote on it in Leinster House.

The country whose politicians queue up to shake the hand of the US President in the White House on St Patrick’s Day, knowing full well that Joe Biden’s Government has provided the missiles which have now killed more than 40,000 people in the tiny Gaza Strip.

How did that square with Ireland’s famed solidarity with the people of Palestine?

This is the country in which Government politicians revived the ‘Friends of Israel’ group in the Irish parliament in the year (2022) in which Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Israeli NGO B’Tselem all found that Israel was practising the crime of Apartheid.

That was long before October 2023, when the world looked on in horror at the unfolding genocide in besieged Gaza.

Our political leaders keep making strong noises about the genocide which has been on-going in Gaza for ten months now.

They have been stunned by the massive street rallies from Derry to Cork, and Galway to Dublin, which have seen thousands of ordinary Irish people take to the streets again and again to condemn the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Across the world, people recognise the Irish for our own struggle for independence, freedom and equality, and for the leading role our country took in bringing about the end to Apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s.

In Dublin, I have seen 80,000 to 100,000 Irish people march on cold winter Saturdays for Palestine, month after month, travelling from all over the country.

At Kneecap or Lankum concerts, at Electric Picnic, at Bohemian FC football games, or the All-Ireland finals, ordinary Irish people stand up and wave the flag of the colonised, expressing solidarity from one people who understand colonisation to another.

Huge funds have been raised for Palestinian and medical charities at gigs up and down the country and Palestinian speakers have done wonders to raise awareness about the terrible injustice their people have been forced to endure at the hands of settler-colonisers for more than 76 years.

But, apart from a few meaningless gestures, it has never been more apparent that the Irish Government simply does not have the courage to stand up for a what is right and take meaningful measures to end the slaughter in Gaza.

We haven’t seen sanctions.

We haven’t seen the banning of the US military from Shannon.

We haven’t seen an arms embargo or meaningful steps to end cooperation with Israeli institutions which are complicit in the Gaza genocide.

In recent weeks, it has been encouraging to see some changed rhetoric from the Irish Government, as the situation in Gaza becomes unbearable in the wake of ten months of bombardment by US-backed forces.

“The world is standing at the precipice of a horrific moment, and yet all levers to bring an end to the violence are not being used,” said An Taoiseach, Simon Harris last week.

“I again call for an urgent review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. The Agreement contains human rights clauses, and I do not believe it is conscionable for the EU to continue to render them redundant. Ireland calls for an immediate ceasefire, the unconditional release of Israeli hostages, and for aid trucks to flow unimpeded.”

Encouraging words in the face of a human catastrophe, and in the week or so since Mr Harris issued that statement Israel has continued to bomb schools and terrorise families who have nowhere to escape to, in a place where 47% of the population are children.

We’re great at saying the right thing in Ireland and generating the global headlines, but our political leaders are as far away as they’ve ever been from taking meaningful action to end the greatest injustice of our lifetimes.

They seem to take their cues from the US, who are paying for the mass slaughter of Palestinians, or the Germans, who are also supplying weapons and are now taking to dragging people out of bed at 6am for the terrible “crime” of writing “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” on social media.

We could take action now, by bringing an end to the facilitation of US military planes at Shannon, by banning settlement goods, and by making sure Ireland has absolutely no links with the arms trade in Israel.

But it’s far easier to “recognise the state” of a people who have been living under a brutal occupation for decades, whatever that even means, as settlements continue to be built on stolen land and schools continue to be bombed to bits in Gaza.

The people of Palestine need action, not strong statements of condemnation which have no consequences for those who commit war crimes.

Urgent Appeal