Irish people join worldwide outrage

» Mark Moloney

See – Israel losing social media war (below)

TENS OF THOUSANDS of people took to the streets across the 32 counties of Ireland throughout July to oppose the horrific Israeli onslaught against the people of Gaza.

Despite the huge and heartfelt support for the Palestinian people displayed by Irish citizens, the Irish Government refused calls from Sinn Féin and other organisations to expel the Israeli Ambassador and suspend the EU’s preferential trade agreement with the rogue state.

In what Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams TD described as “a shameful act of political cowardice”, the Irish Government disgracefully failed to support a UN resolution vote on investigating Israeli war crimes. Instead, the Government chose to further surrender Ireland’s sovereignty and adhere to an EU diktat to abstain.

Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan (a member of the Oireachtas Friends of Israel and who previously accused media in Ireland of demonsising Israel and “dancing to the Palestinian drumbeat for decades”) defended the state’s spineless decision. He said ‘Ireland’ could not support the motion as it did not “recognise the right of Israel as a democratic state to defend itself”.

Prior to this, on the last day the Dáil sat before its summer recess, TDs stood in a moment of solidarity with the people of Gaza, Palestine and the Middle East.

Sinn Féin elected representatives also took part in demonstrations organised by a number of Palestinian solidarity groups including the Ireland-Palesine Solidarity Campaign, Sadaka and Gaza Action Ireland. Dublin Sinn Féin’s 34 councillors from the four local authorities handed in an official letter to the Israeli Embassy calling on the state to cease its indiscriminate attacks on the Gaza Strip, to lift the blockade of Gaza and to comply with international obligations.

Asked on Newstalk Breakfast whether he had any sense of shame about “what many people see as state-orchestrated terrorism in Gaza”, the Israeli Ambassador Boaz Modai responded:

“I don’t feel even a bit of shame. I feel a lot of pride.” He went on to describe the Israeli Army as “the most moral army in the world” and, in a display of his state’s absolute contempt for international law, the Ambassador said the UN Human Rights Council should be renamed the “UN Terrorists’ Rights Council”.

Derry City Council also passsed a Sinn Féin motion condemning Israel’s actions.

• Sinn Féin host a lunchtime protest outside Leinster House calling for an immediate end to Israel’s onslaught

Speaking at one protest outside Leinster House, Sinn Féin TD Pádraig Mac Lochlainn said:

“We know the history of the shameful and disgraceful abandonment of the people of Gaza for all these decades. 1.5million of them are imprisoned in the open-air jail of Gaza, surrounded by all sides.

“The people of Palestine have a right to nationhood, a right to dignity, and a right to freedom free from Israeli oppression.”

Hitting out at the attempt to portray the massacre as some sort of conflict of equals, he asked:

“Is anybody seriously suggesting this is a fair fight? Of course we want to see the rocket attacks stop but let’s be sensisble – this is about an oppressed people, beaten down for decades.

“The resposibility is on the international commmunity to once and for all confront the rogue state of Israel.”

Speaking at a protest by Ógra Shinn Féin in Derry, Martina Anderson MEP described the actions of Israel as “appalling carnage” and called for a de-escalation of the conflict and an immediate ceasefire. She condemned Israel’s failure to engage in dialogue:

“The Israeli Government must recognise the Palestinian unity government and engage in dialogue in order to find a way out of the current situation. It is clear from this latest series of attacks that Israel wishes to put a wedge between Fatah and Hamas.”

Israel losing social media war

ISRAEL’S usually slick online media operation, which includes hundreds of students establishing “war rooms” in their universities to “sell the war” (often in return for paid scholarships from the Israeli Government) was routed by pro-Palestinian activists.

Thousands of videos, images and photographs from inside Gaza using the tag #GazaUnderAttack and #ISupportGaza flooded Twitter   and showed the horrific reality of Israel’s blitz to the world. Victims of Israel’s aggression are bypassing the mainstream media filter meaning for the first time many people are seeing the uncensored horror unfold on the ground.

Thousands of people shared videos and photos from An Phoblacht and Sinn Féin Ireland.

More than 1.3million saw the photo of Sinn Féin MEPs standing in support of Palestine in the EU Parliament in Strasbourg (right) while thousands more viewed a video of the Dáil’s TDs stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people at the request of Gerry Adams TD, something the Israeli national media picked up on.