IRISH GOVERNMENT MUST FORCEFULLY CONDEMN TRUMP’S INTENT TO COMMIT WAR CRIMES

IRISH ANTI WAR MOVEMENT (IAWM) PRESS RELEASE, O6 February 2025

The IAWM condemns the outburst by US President Donald Trump calling for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza, for its occupation and reconstruction by the US as the “Riviera of the Middle East” and for Gazans to be re-located to Egypt and Jordan. Despite the apparent row-back by White House spokespersons yesterday, Trump’s declaration exposes the true imperial agenda of his right-wing government.

For Trump to ignore the immense suffering of the Palestinian survivors of genocide and their legitimate struggle for human rights and to see their land solely as a real estate opportunity and a chance for sea exploration of rare elements chimes well with his support for expansionist fantasies of multinational companies and capitalist billionaires.

Seeing a convicted felon alongside a wanted genocidal war criminal at a hideous press conference outlay their planned criminal intent was the most grotesque and obscene display of colonial power in many years and highlights the impunity of the US and Israel to the requirements of the global legal system.

This macabre Trump-Netanyahu press event happened while the sympathy of the whole world is with Palestine as hundreds of thousands of Gazans make the long trek home to their destroyed homes and devastated neighbourhoods. Trump recently approved the selling of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel – which were belatedly and reluctantly banned by Biden – even though there is hardly anything left to bomb in Gaza.

As UN Rapporteur for the Occupied Territories, Francesca Albanese said the day after the press conference: “this is unlawful, immoral and irresponsible” and noted that “Palestinians are the only ones with the right to say how Gaza should be re-built”.

While some suggest that Trump’s obscene remarks could be seen as a pathetic attempt to boost Netanyahu – because the ceasefire and the return home of Gazans is being portrayed as a defeat for Israel – we must recognise that such expansionist policies have long been suggested by fanatics in Israel and the USA. It is part of the logic of settler colonialism that dates back to the colonial inspired Balfour Declaration of 1917.

The Irish Government must once and for all purge itself of its obeisance towards American Governments and multinational companies, as well as its complicity in genocide and, instead take a principled stance and forcefully call out Trump’s vision for what it is – a clear incitement to commit the crime of enforced displacement and ethnic cleansing of a defenceless, traumatised and genocide surviving population.

The IAWM therefore calls on the Irish Government to:

Strenuously condemn Trump’s expansionist declaration
Immediately pass the Occupied Territories Bill and the Arms Embargo Bill
Stop the illegal Irish Central Bank involvement in Israeli bond trade
Drop the inclusion of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism
Announce that no Irish politicians will attend the White House on St. Patrick’s Day
End the stopover facility to the US at Shannon Airport
Call for other countries of the UN to sanction Israel and isolate the US

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