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Champion Palestinian Self-determination
In less than five weeks the genocidal war by the Israel government against the Palestinian people will enter his second year. Having ruthlessly and cruelly waged war against the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip for 11 months Israel’s war machine has now shifted to a full blown pogrom against the Palestinian people in the occupied territory of the west Bank. Violence from the Israeli military, and from settlers eager to steal Palestinian land and water, had already seen over 600 Palestinians killed in the west Bank since last October. Six hostages died also executed, it appears, in Gaza hours before Israeli forces reached them. All this must be brought to an end. That means dialogue.
Last week Israeli forces embarked on a significant escalation of their actions in that part of the Occupied Territories. Under the title ‘Summer Camps’ they commenced a major offensive against the civilian population. Entire districts have been sealed off restricting Palestinian movement and many families have been forcibly displaced. The local roads, water pipes, communication networks, as well as sewage infrastructure have also been damaged. The Jenin municipality says that 70% of all roads and streets in Jenin have been destroyed.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported at the weekend that the Israeli invasion of the northern West Bank brings the total number of Palestinians killed by Israel and its settlers in the last eleven months to 677.
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories has rejected the Israeli government’s efforts to justify the west Bank pogrom under the “law of self-defence.” She said; “This claim has no validity.” The UN Rapporteur pointed out that International Court of Justice in July reaffirmed its view that “Israel’s very presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is itself unlawful.” She said: “As an ongoing unlawful use of force, Israel’s occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories cannot be justified by any claim of self-defence.”
In the Gaza Strip dozens more Palestinian civilians have been killed in recent days. Almost 41,000 Palestinians have now been killed in Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza and almost 100,000 more have been wounded, many crippled for life.
And all of this time most western governments continue to support Israel’s genocidal policy, provide political support for it and supply Israel with armaments.
Demonstrations in support of a ceasefire and against Israeli strategies have continued to attract huge numbers. The march and rally in Dublin last weekend was great to see. On Monday Israel witnessed a general strike by Israeli trade unions angry at the failure of Netanyahu’s government to secure the release of hostages. A protest in Tel Aviv and in other cities is said to have attracted over half a million. According to media reports the strike closed much of the Israeli economy down. There appears to be growing anger at what some Israeli’s believe is Netanyahu’s deliberate obstruction of ceasefire negotiations.
Our focus must be on continuing to highlight the plight of the Palestinian people and demand an immediate ceasefire. The Irish government has a responsibility to urgently and immediately:
- Call for all party talks and use its influence internationally to advocate for dialogue to end the war.
- Enact the Illegal Israeli settlements divestment bill.
- Enact the Occupied Territories Bill.
- Use every possible sanction available domestically and step up efforts to suspend the EU-Israel association agreement.
- It should also advocate for an embargo on Israel and support a thorough, independent and transparent investigation of all violations of international law committed by all actors.
Most importantly it must champion the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. As the International Court of Justice ruled in July: “It is for all States … to ensure that any impediment resulting from the illegal presence of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory to the exercise of the Palestinian people of its right to self-determination is brought to an end.”
Two Good Women Gone
The recent deaths of Nell McCafferty and Edna O’Brien sparked a period of deserved and fulsome praise across the media for these two outstanding Irish women. I am sure this was a consolation for their families and friends and I extend my condolences and sympathy to them all.
I knew Nell and Edna. Not very well. But well enough to admire them both. I have not been in contact with them for some time. Like most people - and book lovers - I came across Edna through her writing. I was in my late teens when I first read The Country Girls and have been a fan ever since. This book and the two other novels which followed were disgracefully banned by the Irish Censorship Board. She was vilified in particular by the leaders of the Catholic Church.
Edna left Ireland and lived mostly in London. She went on to publish twenty novels, screen plays and numerous articles. She also won many awards for her work and as importantly as she persevered she was recognised by her peers and much admired for the way she highlighted many unjust aspects of Irish society and in particular the way that women were treated. All of this has been remembered in the many tributes paid to her.
Her support for the Irish republican cause is also worth recalling. That was part of her essence. Edna O’Brien’s values were republican values. Her Ireland was the opposite to the mean spirited, conservative and partitioned island that she grew up in. She supported our political prisoners. Her tribute to Bobby Sands, published by Brandon Books for The Bobby Sands Trust, ‘Hunger Strike- Reflections on the 1981 Hunger Strike’, says it all.
Memo to Bobby
Edna O’Brien, Writer
At the dying moment
Did you whisper a word?
We shall not know.
We can only guess at hunger
The hunger of hunger
Gargantuan, garrulous
In your pig-sty with thousands
Of hours to fill –
Guard dogs,
The Prophet Sirah,
Blackberries in Rathcoole
A mouthful of cement.
Until the blessed morning – Dementia and the letter go.
Your radiant smile
From a weather-beaten mural
How beautiful it is;
Such abundance.
Manna, it says, fell from Heaven, Once.
©: https://www.bobbysandstrust.
Edna O'Brien was ninety three when she died but her spirit will live on in her writing.
So too with Nell McCafferty. Nell also contributed to ‘Hunger Strike- Reflections on the 1981 Hunger Strike’. Her essay is well worth reading again. A Derry woman, she grew up in a street near to Martin McGuinness. Their mothers were close friends. Nell was part of the great popular uprising at the time of the civil rights activism in the late 1960s.
When she moved to Dublin Nell continued her activism. She was a founding member of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement. She first came to my attention through her wonderful column in the Irish Times about Dublin’s Family Court. Her journalism was the finest example of pithy raw outrage about how the poor were treated by the legal system. That sense of outrage fuelled all Nell’s work. And she never forgot where she came from.
She wrote about the Women Prisoners on protest in Armagh. When others ignored them Nell wrote a book about them. In 1980 in an Irish Times article Nell argued that feminists had a moral obligation to support political status for the Armagh Women. The uproar that followed cost her her job.
Years later I heard her interview on RTE when she gave her opinion that the armed struggle was legitimate. She was immediately banned from the airwaves. Worst still the next day the IRA exploded a bomb in Enniskillen killing eleven people and wounding sixty others.
Her book ‘A Woman To Blame: The Kerry Babies Case’ exposed and indicted the judicial system and Garda and highlighted the ill treatment of the young woman who was treated so disgracefully. Many of us knew Nell from her television appearances, particularly on The Late Late Show. She was a star. Brave. Funny. Scathing. Eamonn McCann summed her up well in his eulogy at her funeral. She changed Ireland.
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