A PEOPLE Before Profit (PBP) representative on Cape Clear has said that Ireland should cut diplomatic ties with Israel and expel its ambassador, due to current events in Gaza.
Ed Harper, a long-time supporter of PBP, said Ireland should recall both the Irish ambassador and any trade missions to Israel.
It should also pressure the European Union to end all military, technological and diplomatic support for what he calls 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,’ he said this week.
Mr Harper, a well-known goat herder on the island, added that, 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,’ he told The Southern Star.
He added that billions of euro in advanced weaponry from the US and Britain flow uninterrupted into Israel despite their ‘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,’ said Ed.
He added that prior to the recent Hamas assault on Israelis, over 200 Palestinians had already been murdered by Israeli forces and settlers ‘just this year’.
‘The areas attacked by Hamas are not simply some bucolic towns or villages, they are stolen Palestinian land occupied by Israeli settlers. The town of Sderot which has seen heavy fighting is built on the site of the Palestinian village of Najd and the residents are infamous for gathering on a hill beside the town to watch and celebrate Israeli air strikes on Gaza,’ he said.
‘No one wants to see hostages taken, but again many of those taken are members of the occupation forces or settler movements and this action comes in the face of Israel regularly imprisoning vast numbers of Palestinians – including children – often without charge in a process known as administrative detention.’
The two sides to the conflict are not equal, they are the oppressed and the oppressor, the occupied and the occupier, said Ed.
‘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,’ he said.
