Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Greens in government have continued to allow our airspace to be used to transport arms to Israel, and have consistently refused to sanction Israel. This makes them complicit in the genocide in Gaza. Marnie Holborow argues, for this rotten record alone, any government politician standing for election should be denied our vote.
The mass murder of Palestinians, the destruction of Gaza and now of Lebanon, continues to unfold in front of our eyes. Yet in the general election campaign the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael-led government seeks to play it down. It wants us to look no further than domestic issues, and make us believe, through harping endlessly on about their pre-election supposed give-away budget, that elections are not about the big issues.
The brutal war on Palestine has ignited the biggest mass movement of recent times. It represents a spontaneous outpouring of solidarity across the world not seen since the Vietnam war. Ireland has been very much part of this global movement; over thirteen months it has sent a powerful message from the ground up that Ireland stands with Palestine.
‘Palestine is a red line issue’, as shown above, was produced by a local Mothers for Social Justice group based in Sligo. Their commitment and determination have been repeated across Ireland and represents, both locally and nationally, a strong Palestinian message, which needs to be heard much louder in this election.
Genocide
A chief IDF officer, Bri General Itzik Cohen, recently made it abundantly clear that the ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza was Israel’s aim. He declared that they were getting closer to the ‘clear evacuation’ of Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya and made no attempt to hide that his orders were to ‘create a cleansed space’ in that area.
We see this every night on our screens. We have no idea how many Palestinians have been killed as many bodies still lie under the rubble. What we do know is that in early November at least 43,391 people had been killed directly by Israeli attacks. More women and children have been killed than any other conflict in a single year. Israeli explosive weapons hit civilian structures on average every three hours. Tens of thousands continually forced out of their homes by constant airstrikes and artillery fire, shelters and hospitals bombed to the ground and armed Israeli Occupying Forces ensuring that nothing is left behind.
Of course, the full death toll from the genocide is much greater. When bodies buried under the rubble, unidentifiable bodies and indirect deaths such as starvation and disease are accounted for, the full death toll could be over 350,000. Yet our government still refuses to admit this is genocide.
Displaced Palestinians line up at gunpoint in the ruins of Jabalia refugee camp.
If this is not a red line issue for who we elect, what is? As a start, therefore, we must refuse to vote for government parties whose denial of Israel’s genocide makes them complicit.
We must demand louder a ban on the refuelling of military planes at Shannon and on exports of ‘dual use’ technologies to Israel. BDS needs to be implemented across state funded agencies. We must take a stand against the shameful pro-Zionism of the EU and ensure the Israeli ambassador never returns to Ireland.
Only those candidates who demand an end to all trade with Israel and a halt to US companies using our airspace to transport weapons to Israel should receive our vote.
Occupied Territories Bill
As the general election drew closer, and Gaza and Lebanon terror got worse, there was an opportunity for the Dáil to pass the Occupied Territories Bill. But Simon Harris hedged his bets with spin and confusion. He said the Government wanted ‘to take real and practical action’ but also that the Bill needed to be re-examined for legal reasons before it could be passed. The bill was put off until the next Dáil session.
It was bad enough that Harris was saying that Palestinians will have to wait until after an Irish general election for Israel to begin to be held accountable for its war crimes. It has also been revealed that the US Ambassador to Ireland pressured the Government against enacting the Bill, because it would cause economic uncertainty for the 1000 US companies operating in Ireland.
This Bill was tabled six years ago but was frozen in the legislative process because it might breach EU law. It called for banning trade with and economic support for illegal settlements in the Palestinian occupied territories; violators would face fines of up to €250,000 and five years in prison. Its provisions were mild enough considering what has happened since, but our government did not want to rock the EU boat.
EU as bad as Genocide Joe
The EU, even amid Israel’s slaughter of 44,000 Palestinians, is still not legally required to ban goods imported from Israeli settlements, according to a recent ruling in the Hague. This is in spite of the International Court of Justice ruling, in July, that EU states should end all support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine, including the West Bank and Gaza Strip
As has become outrageously clear, the EU does everything to support Israel. Under its special EU-Israel Association Agreement, the EU continues to be Israel’s biggest trade partner, and accounts for 28.8% of its trade in goods. Last year, the European nation’s weapons sales to Israel were worth €326.5m – a 10-fold increase compared with 2022 – with the majority of those export licences granted after 7 October 2023. The EU’s most powerful state, Germany, flies the Israeli flag outside many public buildings, bans the wearing of the Palestinian keffiyeh in schools, and has regularly cracked down on pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Only last week Ursula von der Leyden led the charge of antisemitism against pro-Palestinian protesters in Amsterdam, ignoring the fact that it was the violent racism from the Israeli soccer fans which triggered the violence.
The EU‘s reaction to the Israeli’s murder of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, in October, said it all. EU leaders rushed – not to condemn – but to use it to urge Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah. German Foreign Minister and Green Party MP Annalena Baerbock praised Israel for ‘significantly weakening the Hezbollah terrorist organization’ and for creating the basis of a diplomatic solution which safeguards the ‘legitimate security interests of Israel and Lebanon”. To the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance, and to many others, the EU are simply Zionist accomplices, no different to the USA, and singing from the same hymn sheet as Netanyahu.
The Irish government’s delaying of the Occupied Territories Bill fits into this acquiescence. It is one in a long line of duplicitous behaviour towards the Palestinian cause: they say they are concerned about the scale of the suffering, make rhetorical calls for a ceasefire but do nothing to upset the western imperialist powers upon which the Zionist death machine relies. If the EU and the US stopped their military support for Israel, their genocidal campaign could end tomorrow.
Tokenism
The Government has made much of its recognition – following Spain and Norway – of the state of Palestine in May this year. It took this step only because the mass movement forced them to react – and it does not amount to very much. The Palestinian Mission in Ramallah has been upgraded to Embassy status. The Palestinian Authority, despite all that has happened, is still recognised as the only legitimate governing authority in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. Ireland, like the EU, continues to name Hamas as the terrorist organisation in the conflict. Yet the same two-state Oslo accords framework has allowed Israel’s persecution of Palestinians to continue through the relentless and unsanctioned expansion of illegal settlements.
Ireland’s recognition of the state of Palestine was a token gesture which, as Palestinian activists have pointed out, did nothing to stop the suffering. It has not altered one bit the government’s willingness to aid Israel. The transport via Irish airspace of tonnes of munitions to Israel continues. The Irish government cannot claim ignorance of what was being transported either. It was fully aware that Silk Way West Airlines had illegally transported explosives for the IDF over Ireland in April this year and yet raised no objections.
The Irish government, for all its talk, preserves the Zionist status quo. In the recent US elections Kamala Harris showed slight and occasional ‘performative empathy’ towards the Palestinians to give the Democrats’ support for genocide a veneer of legitimacy. And here is not so different.
Palestine is the issue
During the general election, we will see more of this doublespeak. And it must be called out. Not many of the opposition party candidates in Labour, the Social Democrats or even Sinn Féin – seem intent on making Palestine an election issue; it hardly gets a mention in their election material. People Before Profit candidates identify strongly with Palestine, in their election leaflets and on social media, their Keffiyehs often warmly greeted on the doorstep. People understand that we cannot be indifferent to the genocide in Gaza and respect those candidates that have a principled anti-Zionist and anti-imperialist position.
Furthermore, amid a climate of growing racism, thousands of people standing with Palestine is a clear repudiation of settler colonial white supremacy and shows that, contrary to what the racist far right claim, people of colour are our own too.
Elections should be about the kind of world we want to see and the political decisions that shape it. The present government parties need to be called out for their complicity in genocide, but we also need to build pressure on a new government to impose meaningful sanctions on Israel. For those who seek a better world, one without genocidal wars and one in which our governments do not line up with the war mongers, Palestine is a red line issue.
