IAWM PRESS RELEASE 19 JULY 2014
• IAWM SUPPORTS IPSC PROTEST FOR GAZA TODAY
• CONDEMNS CONTINUED ISRAELI MILITARY ONSLAUGHT AGAINST PEOPLE OF GAZA
• CONDEMNS THE BIAS OF WESTERN GOVERNMENTS AND THE WESTERN MEDIA
• CALLS ON IRISH GOVERNMENT AND IRISH MEDIA TO TELL THE TRUTH
The Irish anti-war Movement (IAWM) issued a statement today supporting the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s (IPSC) call for a solidarity protest for the people of Gaza today at the Spire in Dublin at 2pm. This will coincide with protests in other Irish cities to be held at the same time and indeed in cities around the world. See here for details of all Irish protests –
http://www.ipsc.ie/press-releases/all-out-for-paletsine-ongoing-actions-for-gaza-around-ireland-updated-when-we-have-updates
The IAWM statement noted that Israel’s latest military onslaught on the people of Gaza amounts to nothing less than state terrorism. There are now over 300 people killed with so many of these being women and children. The worst atrocity this week was the brutal bombing and killing of four boys on a beach which occurred two days after an Israeli Commander replied when asked by an interviewer as to where Gazans can go; “well they can go to the south or to the beach”. This shows the attitude of the Israeli military to Palestinians, which treats them as sub-human.
The statement totally condemned the manufactured escalation of violence by Israel after failing to include Hamas in any discussion on a ceasefire, which the latter only heard about over the airwaves.
Memet Uludag of the IAWM Steering Committee said:
IAWM PRESS RELEASE 19 JULY 2014
• IAWM SUPPORTS IPSC PROTEST FOR GAZA TODAY
• CONDEMNS CONTINUED ISRAELI MILITARY ONSLAUGHT AGAINST PEOPLE OF GAZA
• CONDEMNS THE BIAS OF WESTERN GOVERNMENTS AND THE WESTERN MEDIA
• CALLS ON IRISH GOVERNMENT AND IRISH MEDIA TO TELL THE TRUTH
The Irish anti-war Movement (IAWM) issued a statement today supporting the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s (IPSC) call for a solidarity protest for the people of Gaza today at the Spire in Dublin at 2pm. This will coincide with protests in other Irish cities to be held at the same time and indeed in cities around the world. See here for details of all Irish protests –
http://www.ipsc.ie/press-releases/all-out-for-paletsine-ongoing-actions-for-gaza-around-ireland-updated-when-we-have-updates
The IAWM statement noted that Israel’s latest military onslaught on the people of Gaza amounts to nothing less than state terrorism. There are now over 300 people killed with so many of these being women and children. The worst atrocity this week was the brutal bombing and killing of four boys on a beach which occurred two days after an Israeli Commander replied when asked by an interviewer as to where Gazans can go; “well they can go to the south or to the beach”. This shows the attitude of the Israeli military to Palestinians, which treats them as sub-human.
The statement totally condemned the manufactured escalation of violence by Israel after failing to include Hamas in any discussion on a ceasefire, which the latter only heard about over the airwaves.
Memet Uludag of the IAWM Steering Committee said:
“Let’s be honest here, listening to journalists on the ground, watching the videos and seeing the pictures coming from Gaza, if what is happening there was happening anywhere else in the world it wouldn’t be seen as a regional conflict but a major international and humanitarian crisis. It is a massacre on top of the 8-year long siege of Gaza and oppression of the entire Palestinian population. We need to not only support the Boycott Divestments Sanctions (BDS) campaign to send the Israeli state a very strong message but also demand that our own government here in Ireland acts now and expels the Israeli ambassador as a sign of commitment to the justice and rights of Palestinians.”
The IAWM statement also condemned the bias of western leaders towards Israel.
Raymond Deane of the IAWM Steering Committee said:
“It seems as if the governments of the world have decided quite simply to sacrifice the people of Gaza. This means that the people of the world must stand up all the more forcefully for Palestinian rights, which are at the heart of any aspiration to a peaceful world.”
The statement also condemned the outright and obvious bias of western media that it claimed acts like a PR machine for the Israeli state. This was partly acknowledged by BBC Radio 4 this week when it finally allowed a lengthy reflective piece on the subject of its own coverage but only after up to 5,000 protesters blockaded the BBC HQ in London the day before. The IAWM statement urged Irish media pundits to read the Guardian’s Seamus Milne’s analysis of Israel’s current onslaught. See here – http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/16/gaza-shameful-injustice-israel-attacks-occupied-people
Jim Roche, IAWM PRO, said:
“We constantly here time and time again the balancing by the media of Israel’s massive bombardment with the largely ineffective rocket fire by Hamas. There is rarely any contextual analysis of the asymmetric warfare being waged by the world’s 4th largest military power against a defenseless civilian population. This latest onslaught has little to do with ineffective rockets being fired from Gaza. It is designed purely to collectively punish the Palestinians for the murder of 3 Israeli teenagers and to scupper the Fatah / Hamas unity pact, which is the last thing Israel wishes to see; a united Palestinian people. It is shameful that the western media is so distortive in its reportage. That is another reason why there are so many protests throughout the world in solidarity with the people of Gaza and calling for decent investigative journalism of the issue.”
END
Contact:
Raymond Deane, Steering Committee IAWM
Memet Uludag, Steering Committee IAWM
Jim Roche, PRO Steering Committee IAWM
Website – www.irishantiwar.org
@IrishAntiWarMvt https://twitter.com/#!/IrishAntiWarMvt
