Dublin protests against Israeli occupation

by Brendan Hughes - The Blanket Mon Apr 15, 2002 12:53 webmaster at phoblacht dot net

Yesterday morning my door sounded as if it was about to crash in. The blattering accompanied by shouting through the small letterbox was frantic. It was just as well I had asked a friend to give me a wake up call. I had volunteered to drive the minibus to Dublin at the request of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Committee. And I had almost slept in. But like everything else in these circumstances where the downtrodden are resisting, moral obligation and a sense of solidarity kick in and I always manage to make it and give my support.

A door being battered and hammered always reminds me of British Army raids. I felt relieved that it was just a friend doing the hammering. My thoughts drifted to those in occupied Palestine hearing similar noise followed by the voices of fascist Israeli soldiers in jackboots, then gunfire. In the wake of the visit, a child or another loved one dead. I would make it to Dublin even if I had to walk.

Things in Palestine have got so bad that even the Pope has condemned the Israeli government. But the thought crossed my mind that this was more to do with the fact that with nowhere else to escape the murderous Israeli assault the Palestinians were seeking refuge in churches. Had the Vatican conducted another sordid deal with fascism for which it is renowned - shoot all you want but not if they are on our property?

In prison I read books about the Warsaw Ghetto. Mila 18 by Leon Uris gripped me because it was a story about resistance against odds that could not be overcome. But the alternative for the Jewish was to let the Nazi fascists march them off to the gas chambers. I admired those young Jewish fighters who went to their deaths fighting rather than pleading with a presumed human decency that simply did not exist. Some children as young as six crawled through the sewers of the ghetto to bring back food to keep their families alive. It went on for a long time. Each day as they began their descent into the sewer they must have realised that it could be their last - and for the majority it was. The Nazis rounded them up and murdered them for feeding their families. Other kids had to lie in secret hiding places from where they could watch helplessly as their mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters were herded off to death in the concentration camps.

I was not yet born when all this was taking place. But watching events in Palestine today I can see at first hand what it was like for those brave Jewish people in the Warsaw Ghetto. Innocent people under fascist and racist attack. And yet they resist. When we watch this we know that Hitler never really died but is on the march having donned the mask of those he sought to exterminate. He is writing the hated number on the arms of the Palestinians. What genocide has he planned for the Ramallah Ghetto?

And we know just how easy it can be to inflict such genocide when there are so many prepared to turn a blind eye. Nazi Germany went as far as it did because of blind eyes and cowardly silence. Do not let on you are unaware of what is happening. The spectre of Israeli racism is massacring the Palestinians. Do no give your children cause to condemn you for your indifference. Speak out and demand the end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine now.

by Anthony McIntyre - The Blanket Mon Apr 15, 2002 12:55 webmaster at phoblacht dot net

As a result of our work with the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign we drove from Belfast to Dublin on a cloudless but cold Saturday morning to take part in a protest aimed at highlighting and ultimately helping to stop Israeli state terrorism in the Middle East. Earlier in the week we had, in the somewhat inflated account of one newspaper, 'stormed' the American Consulate in Belfast in opposition to continued US support for the rogue state of Israel. The Saturday before saw us on the march through Belfast city centre to the City Hall in a public display of anger at an ever-growing vortex of savagery in occupied Palestine into which humanity and sentiment are being sucked and crushed as this savage war of pitilessness continues to grind the animate innocent beneath the inanimate wheels of tanks manned by the guilty. The capacity of these mechanical monsters for compassion as non-existent as that of the Julius Striecher type tyrant who despatched them.

Our Belfast march gave a cosmopolitan tinge to Donegal Place as people of different colours, cultures and religions blended together in contrast to the virtually white pavement rooted pedestrian population that stopped to gaze at us, take our leaflets and shout support. I was reminded of Hector Bolitho's endearing little phrase from A Summer in Germany, 'Fences are good for animals but not for human beings'.

In Dublin, I felt that the Gardai were going to need fences to ensure we did not stray off the pavement into the path of oncoming traffic. Gathered at the Bank of Ireland in Dame Street our numbers multiplied due to an influx of interested Dubliners straining to hear the speakers. Those of us at the back were forced onto the road by the bulging crowd to the annoyance of those guards trying to hold the line between passing cars and protestors. But there was no animosity, just a businesslike preoccupation. The proceeding march to O'Connell Street saw even more people join the throng as the thoroughfare became adorned in flags of red, black, white and green. Palestine was being inserted into the public consciousness of Dublin. Massed in its main street those pressing home their ethical resistance challenged the media to remove its own ethical blinkers.

And such blinkers seem to come with the turf. It was all too evident in London when we brought traffic to a standstill in support of the Turkish hunger strikers almost a year and a half ago - and the hunger strike still goes on against a backdrop of virtual media quiescence. In the very city in which we were now on the march, only a matter of months ago, the media paid scant attention to a large rally, again in support of those on hunger strike in Turkey. Perhaps the olive tinge to the skin of the slain and the starving helped create, unconsciously or otherwise, a 'we see whites only' mentality. An intellectual apartheid all the more invidious because it is piloted by an ethereal stealth while consciousness sleeps.

On our way to the Israeli Embassy we passed a small group of Hari Krishna sitting on a Grafton Street kerb playing music and murmuring as if in prayer. The thought crossed my mind that while a legitimate form of activity it has as much capacity to change anything as the pub socialists of Belfast. The latter spout rhetoric about 'bourgeois liberalism' and 'revolutionary proletariats' from their bar stools while monotonously but endlessly enjoining the rest of us with sore feet to mobilise the organised working class. Less pleasant to listen to than our kerbside companions in flowing orange saris, they give new meaning to Sartre's Being and Nothingness - being so full of nothingness. The thought was all the more pronounced as a result of having read a Guardian piece at the beginning of the week in which an international business lawyer from Scotland, Rory MacMillan, said 'I decided to use my Easter holidays to come out with a group to dig up road-blocks and block tanks in the occupied territories'. He and others risked their lives to prevent Israeli troops capturing or killing Palestinians or harassing poor families. Viewed through a glass of red wine it would appear just another sentimental dose of liberalism. Maybe lacking the moral fibre or elbow grease required to quaff down another pint for the revolution he, nevertheless, won the admiration of those of us gingerly tramping back across Dublin city centre to our ragtag means of transport home.

The embassy had been picketed, the Israeli flag torched, the solitary protester in the tree outside showered with greetings of solidarity, our work had been done - but only for the day. I had hardly arisen from my bed the following morning when the chair of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign phoned. There was something else to be done. There is always is, there always will be. The Israeli onslaught never stops, never sleeps. And if we are to help prevent it, neither can we. There is no rest for the wicked or for those who oppose them.

by please - please Wed Apr 17, 2002 04:01

I just realized that europe uses palestinian( i prefer to call them jordanese or lebanese because most of them are they just claim to palestinian--thay are arab from the arab nation so they change there nationality to meet political agendas) Europe and obviously ireland uses cheap labor from these countries so they are getting a lot of pressure from the large arab communities in your countries ( I live in the US we get cheap labor mostly from all over the world not predominatly the Middle East) So this is why you people scream so much Politically Correct BS in your countries. You have been targeted by these terrorist before vso you live on nails trying to control these out of control brainwashed Muslums. I read all over the indynews abroad. We have here to in the US but here are huge Pro-Israeli end the terrorism groups here and a lot of the HUman Rights activists are Jewsish and they are concerned about the enemy the so called Palestinians. I feel much better after coming to this realization--of courcewe have the anti-government people who want to stop The US from funding other countries millitary. I am sorry that this has turned int o such a mess. What we need is alternative energy--non oil and no more cheap labor. People have to make a decent wage to live nad stop imporing cheap labor from radical countries which are know to be suicide bombers and terrorist. Stop living in fear of your neighbor in your own country. I read about Jews getting attacked and beat up even in the US. Probably by a bunch of Arabs. If you people comne near me I'll fucken kill you. LOng live Israel Get rid of the real terrorist the suicide bombers---the "Palestinians". Keep on doing what you people have been doing--obvously no one believes you even if they are humanitarians like myself but I do not support any murder who kills for the reason of killing. The Israelis kill terrorist and maybe sometimes casualities are in teh way but this is rare and a shame. Stop the terrorist. Stop Hamas stop al what ever it is called and stop the liberare palestine regime they are know terrrorist. They blow up things in Europe as well--you poeple are so scared and live in so much fear that you take the enmies side.. There is a difference in wanting to rehabilitate terrorist insead of killing them and actually supporting them. Free israeli stop hate crimes against Jews. You cant get away with your tactics in the US. Stop living in fear.

by michael joyce - personal capacity Wed Apr 17, 2002 05:28 mijopa at eircom dot net cork city

I read with interset somewhere that, at the protest outside the gpo last Saturday 6th, that the organisers objected to the swp's anti american slogans, to which they took offence and rightly so. But i must point out that i and several comrades also experienced censureship. I'm refering to the fact that we were approached by richard boyd barett/section 31 and a member of the we love Aarafat faction and were asked to remove placards we were carrying. the placards had such slogans as "End israeli murder" and similar slogans regarding Sharon with the S's
replaced with swastikas. Despite the fact it was obviously a reference to the facist israeli state the reason we were given was that fascists elements in Europe were using the same iconography to attack jewish people and synogogues. Now I count myself actively anti-racist and find this simplification of my views unacceptable. perhaps if section 31 spent more time studying the nature of fascism andcensureship
particularily in an Irish context and less time trying to recruit all those attending the protest
we'd all be better off.
By the way he may also have noticed that by the time we had reached the israeli embassy such placards were multitude and those offended by
the anti american sloganeering could't be heard above the roars as the yankee rag burnt.

by Stan Smith - None Wed Apr 17, 2002 18:41 SGSmitho at netscape dot net 519-264-2800

I can't help wondering why the demonstrators against evil and immoral acts are not knocking on the doors of the Vatican demanding immediate action regarding the numerous children who have been raped by members of the priesthood.
Perhaps directing efforts against authenticated wrongdoing at home is the place to start.
S.Smith.

by Fuck the PLO Thu Apr 25, 2002 06:39

Oh, and fuck their bloody apologists, too.