For more than a century, the Western powers have been complicit in a brutal and relentless attempt to extinguish any hope of the Palestinian people for self-determination in their own homeland. The far-right government in Israel – led by people who openly call for the extermination of the Palestinians – have organised provocative incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, pogroms in Palestinian villages and towns, and have carried out punitive raids in the West Bank aimed at defending settlements illegal under international law. Billions of euros in advanced weaponry from the US and Britain flow uninterrupted into Israel despite these and many other crimes. Remarkably, now that Palestinians have organised to resist, hypocrites in Brussels, London and Washington seem to have found their voice.
The same politicians who have been unable to utter a word of condemnation against the brutal treatment meted out against Palestinians day in and day out are quick to defend apartheid Israel’s ‘right to defend itself’ – but deny the same right to Palestinians. It is the Palestinian people who lived under brutal military occupation and settler colonial erasure for more than 75 years, who are penned into the ‘world’s largest open-air prison’ in Gaza, denied the basic elements for a decent life – including food, clean water and medicine – while being subject to periodic slaughter. We totally reject Tánaiste Micheál Martin’s pious moralising and hypocritical condemnation of Palestinian resistance.
Given the support of Micheál Martin and the Irish government for the right of Ukrainians to resist the brutal Russian invasion, one must ask why a different standard has been applied to the Palestinian people. Micheál Martin’s statement is of course in keeping with his prostration before Western powers keen to shift Ireland away from its position of anti-imperialist military neutrality. Martin advocates a ‘two-state solution’ that has been dead for more than two decades, strangled by Israeli expansionism and only wheeled out as a cover to carry on illegal settlement and the ongoing strangulation of Palestinian life. His statement and the Irish government’s position on Palestine are totally out of step with the deep solidarity for Palestine that exists across Ireland. He must not be seen as representative of the majority Irish opinion on the international stage.
People Before Profit reasserts its full solidarity with the heroic Palestinian people, who deserve the support of freedom-loving people everywhere. We call on the Irish government to:
- Condemn the brutality of the Israeli response to Palestinian resistance and for the Irish government to reaffirm its support for the internationally recognised right of occupied people to defend themselves.
- Cut diplomatic ties with the Zionist regime – expelling the Israeli ambassador and recalling both the Irish ambassador and any trade missions to Israel.
- Pressure the European Union to end all military, technological and diplomatic support for the racist Israeli state.
We urge our supporters to double down on the campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions and to build support everywhere for the freedom of the Palestinian people.
