Joe Daly, People before Profit election candidate in Mayo, argues that the movement for Palestine, with the escalation of the war into Lebanon, needs to intensify. Thousands more people in Ireland are outraged at the extent of collaboration of our government and more radical and socialist voices in the campaign need to be heard.
In the immediate aftermath of the October 7th attack by Hamas on Israel, the Irish establishment of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil were openly supporting Israel’s supposed “Right to Self Defence”. It was as if the conflict in Gaza only began on October 7th and decades of Israeli colonisation, murder and brutalisation could be ignored.
Our own government went along with the ‘October 7th-ism’ of the US and the EU. It only adjusted its rhetoric when the horrific acts of genocide by the IDF on the people of Gaza made it untenable.
It shifted its position to a soft criticism of Israel, without any serious actions backing it up. It refused to expel the Israeli Ambassador; it refused to support the call for sanctions; it refused to end the use of Shannon for the US Military (or even bother to inspect them for weapons.)
In late March, under pressure from the mass movement on the ground, Tánaiste Micheál Martin announced that the Irish government would intervene in the South African International Court of Justice Case against Israel. To date nothing has come of this.
Our Tik-Tok Taoiseach Simon Harris has also been forced at times to sharpen the government’s criticism of Israel. But he shrinks from taking any concrete steps to stop the genocide of the Palestinians. To the casual observer it might appear that the Irish government is on the side of the Palestinians but most of us in the solidarity movement know that this is not the case.
Recent revelations by The Ditch news website of illegal use of Irish airspace to transport weapons and munitions bound for Israel show clearly that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are collaborators and enablers of the genocide of the Palestinians. Secret calls by Fine Gael Minister Paschal Donohoe to reassure the Israeli government that the Irish Government would use the “Money Message Mechanism” to block the Occupied Territories Bill reveal the extent of collaboration with the Zionist regime.
Not the first time………
Activists campaigning to Repeal the 8th Amendment will recall how the establishment shifted their position in the months leading up to the vote. The then Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was anti-abortion up to September 2017. As the movement grew, he took to RTE to describe his Damascene conversion to Repeal. Meanwhile, the Fine Gaelers and Fianna Fáilers in the Together For Yes campaign group always tried to limit the demands of the movement, and shut down radical pro-choice demands.
The political establishment sought to take ownership of Repeal even though they had for years blocked moves in support of a woman’s right to choose. This move would allow them to limit the access to abortion services post-Repeal.
Something similar is happening with the Palestinian Movement. The Government fear the disruptive potential of the mass Palestinian Solidarity Movement and so they are hoping to co-opt it, blunt its most radical demands and direct it down the safe channels of Parliamentary and County Council wrangling.
In the run up to the next General Election there is a deliberate strategy of FG and FF to give themselves a pro-Palestinian gloss as they know this will be a big issue on voters’ minds. The movement shouldn’t be fooled, they are enemies of Palestinian freedom and tied by a thousand strings to the bloody apron of US & EU Imperialism.
Sinn Féin looking both ways
The Sinn Féin leadership and the conservative wing of the party successfully kept the party from taking any official position during the Repeal campaign. It wasn’t until after the referendum passed overwhelmingly did the party adopt a pro-repeal position, despite the fact that there were many SF activists who tried valiantly to shift the party position and worked hard inside the campaign on the ground.
During the Water Charges movement, too, SF shifted tack. It supported the charges initially, then opposed them but refused to call for a boycott. Then, as the movement grew more powerful, and they had lost a Dáil seat to the radical left TD Paul Murphy in Tallaght they came in behind the boycott.
At national Palestine demonstrations, there is notable absence of Sinn Féin flags. On this issue, again, they are looking both ways.
They receive big money from US donors, many of whom are pro-Israeli supporters. Between January 2021 & January 2022 the party received over €1,000,000 from “Friends of Sinn Féin”. Ten years prior to October 7th Sinn Féin refused to support motions demanding the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador, even after the “mowing the lawn” murder campaigns by the IDF. It wasn’t until the leadership saw the power of the movement that they changed position, although this did not stop them handing bowls of shamrock to “Genocide Joe” on St. Patrick’s Day.
In a recent statement to an International Peace Conference in Nazareth, Gerry Adams recently called for an “Alliance of Peace across all divisions of Israeli & Palestinian society”. This only masks the real differences in political, material and class interests of pro and anti-Zionist parties. Are the Israeli far right and fascists to be courted into this alliance? If so, what effect would this have on the movement? How are the interests of Israeli & US corporations to be satisfied given that they profit from the subjugation of Palestinians?
Some Sinn Féin leaders have certainly criticised Western Governments’ hypocrisy more strongly than in the past. But the leadership fails to see the contradiction of holding a United Ireland policy here but a Two-State Solution in Palestine. A partitioned Palestine, as the current horrific genocide shows, has given the Zionist state the institutional framework to pursue its project of ethnic cleansing and crush the Palestinian claim to statehood. The Western-backed Oslo Accords two state solution is discredited.
Sinn Fein may wish to stick to the two-state solution, along with Fianna Fáil & Fine Gael, possibly with an eye to being their partner in the next government. But this approach does nothing for the Palestinians. Socialists should help popularise the demand for a One State Solution that is secular with equal rights for all.
Pressure from below
Like Sinn Féin, the trade union bureaucracy, on both sides of the border are equally reluctant to actively build the Palestinian movement. True to form, they refuse to rock the boat and, amid the greatest genocide we have seen in our lives, still stick to their routine roles as professional negotiators within the bounds set by the State and employers.
But this does not mean they are not subject to pressure from below. Networks of union activists in TUI, Forsa and others have passed motions on solidarity with Palestine. Health Workers for Palestine have come together and organised their support for Palestine. Members in IFUT and SIPTU have furthered the BDS campaign as Academics for Palestine. USI students have occupied their campuses. This work is vital to spread for extending and deepening the movement. Union activists must continue to push for more actions against Zionism, apartheid and imperialist militarism.
There are times in history where workers become much more militant and class conscious and can win big victories with well organised campaigns. Irish workers can be very proud of the fact that it was a small group of mostly women workers in Dunnes that ignited the global boycott of apartheid South Africa which led to its eventual collapse. The power of workers in the capitalist economy to shut down production, distribution and exchange is the key to defeating the Zionist monster. Militant boycotts of trade with Israel and strike actions to pursue this is the way forward.
To date the Palestine Solidarity Campaign has been slow to shed a routinist approach and often chooses to exclude the radical socialist voices. To put the maximum pressure on our Zionist collaborating government the campaign needs to be as broad as possible without allowing FG or FF to limit the demands of the movement.
There has been a tendency in some branches of the IPSC to focus on getting motions passed by County Councils by working with these pro-Israeli parties who ensure that the most radical demands like BDS and sanctions are excluded and that the government is praised for the limited symbolic actions they have been forced to take.
Strategy very often isn’t discussed and members who do try to challenge a conservative approach are treated with hostility by branch committees and in my own case expelled without due process.
Conclusion
The focus of the movement has to shift away from vigils and local council motions that appease the lackeys of US Imperialism to a militant boycott and strike movement that sees the role of workers as central, this is the way forward not class collaboration and appeasement.
The general election must also be used as a rallying call for Palestine. As Israel’s genocide escalates into all-out war in the region, it is possible that the global movement for Palestine will radicalise and involve thousands more. Here we need to make Palestine a big issue in the coming General Election.
We need to relentlessly expose the complicity of the Irish State and the mainstream neoliberal parties who refuse to cut ties with Israel and make clear that genocide is an issue for voters. Palestinian activists right across Ireland must now redouble their efforts to take down this genocide enabling government and mobilise support for a left government that will break with US & EU Imperialism reclaim our military neutrality and stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
