PROTEST AT DÁIL 12-5pm, FRIDAY 23rd AUGUST WITH RALLY at 1.00-2.30pm
A collective of Palestinian Solidarity groups will protest outside Dáil Eireann this Friday 23rd August. A letter written by the groups to all TDs and Senators calls on them to rescind the invitation given to visiting US Congress members to use the Dáil chamber on 23rd August. The letter is copied below and people are invited to send it to TDs and Senators via a link circulated on social media.
The groups that have organised the letter and the protest at the Dáil this Friday are:
- Apartheid Free Arts
- Irish Artists for Palestine
- Irish Creative Arts for Palestine
- Irish Occupational Therapists for Palestine
- Irish Health Care Workers for Palestine
- Mothers Against Genocide
- Pals for Palestine
- Teachers for Palestine
- The Irish Anti-war Movement
- The Union of Students in Ireland
The letter argues that the Government is out of step with the Irish people, the vast majority of whom have shown total solidarity with the people of Palestine, have called for an immediate ceasefire, massive humanitarian aid to the starving Gazans and to impose sanctions on Israel. In this regard, it is highly objectionable that members of the US Congress who recently hosted and applauded the war criminal Netanyahu, and who have consistently approved the transfer of arms to Israel and thus are enabling a genocide, should be granted the use of the Dáil chamber in neutral Ireland.
The most recent announcement of $30 billion worth of arms from the US makes the visit by the US Congress delegation all the more inappropriate.
The current genocidal war being inflicted by Israel on the people of Gaza has witnessed slaughter on an unprecedented scale, the systematic destruction of the means to sustain life, the institutionalisation of rape as a weapon of war, forced starvation, multiple displacements, extrajudicial assassinations in other countries’ sovereign territory and the threat of a wider regional war.
Given the strong condemnations by Taoiseach Simon Harris and Tánaiste Micheál Martin of the Israeli airstrike on the al-Taba’een school which slaughtered over one hundred Gazans almost two weeks ago they both should now openly call for this invitation to the US Congress members to be rescinded. Otherwise, their words are meaningless
Jim Roche, PRO of the Steering Committee of the IAWM said:
“The Gaza genocide is enabled by Western powers, particularly the USA which has provided the necessary arms for Israel to conduct its war crimes. Israel would agree to a peace deal immediately if this arms funding were stopped. Yet Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was recently feted in the White House and received standing ovations in Congress.
It is unbelievable that the Irish Government has invited members of the US Congress, who applauded and gave standing ovations to Netanyahu, to use the Irish Dáil chamber on the 23rd of August. This invitation, along with the prolonged use of Shannon Airport by the US military, implicates all Irish people in the current Gaza genocide. We demand that it be rescinded.”
ENDS
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LETTER TO TDs and SENATORSs
August 2024
To my elected representatives,
We strongly oppose the United States Parliamentary Friendship Group including US State Congress and State Legislators being allowed to use the Dáil Chambers on the 23rd of August 2024.
Dáil Éireann is supposedly the epicentre for social leadership, economic expertise and political intelligence in Ireland – therefore it is wholly unacceptable to allow access to the US Congress and legislators who are enabling what one analyst notes is “the most intense civilian punishment campaign in history that surpassed allied bombings of Germany during World War II in a much shorter period of time.” (3) In the Palestinian Occupied Territories “the proportion of civilian deaths is higher than all other conflicts in the twentieth century (2). What this makes very clear is that the military logic of defeating an enemy in war has been crossed into the genocidal logic of elimination…”.
Any proposal for access to our Dáil for the US Congress or legislators is the antithesis of democratic leadership and societal intelligence. Ireland prides itself on an international platform as being a neutral country. Therefore, anyone proposing or supporting the use of our government buildings is siding with the genocidal actions of Israel and the United States and does not deserve a seat in our government chambers.
The people of Ireland have made it very clear that today and every day they stand with the people of Palestine and oppose any members of the US government who continue to fund the Israeli genocide the use of our government buildings. Allowing this access to Dáil chambers would be in direct conflict to the position that the Irish government has taken on the genocide in Gaza and would amount to a complete betrayal of the Palestinian people.
Solidarity and peace groups, new and old, have come together in a direct response calling for an immediate permanent cease fire, to sanction Israel diplomatically and economically, to cut all trading ties with Israel and to expel the Israeli ambassador from Ireland.
The groups below are coming together to demand that US Congress and legislators be denied the use of the Irish peoples’ government chambers.
IRISH CREATIVE ARTS THERAPISTS FOR PALESTINE find it reprehensible that Senator Malcolm Byrne, Senator Mark Daly, and Deputy Paul McAuliffe are proposing to accommodate and host a large cohort of US Government officials who are complicit in backing, financing, and arming the Israeli campaign of genocide on Palestinian children, men, and women. The proposed event is in the name of diplomacy. We, the Irish Creative Arts Therapists for Palestine, recognise that the time for diplomacy has well and truly ceased. Israel and their advocates, the US government, are burning Palestinian men, women, and children alive in their tents in Gaza. This attempt to extend Irish hospitality to a government that facilitates egregious war crimes is despicable and unacceptable, especially in the name of the Irish people.
TEACHERS FOR PALESTINE vehemently object to US Congress members being invited to the Dáil. Schools and Universities, their students and staff in Gaza have been obliterated by the bombs sent by the US to their Israeli allies. The politicians that sanction this are complicit in the genocide and educide that is occurring and should not be welcomed to our democratic institutions, nor honoured by Irish politicians. We call on the visit to be cancelled.
MOTHERS AGAINST GENOCIDE strongly condemn members of the US Congress being hosted in the Dáil. Families are still being murdered under the Zionist campaign of genocide. All politicians that enable this are complicit in the genocide and need to be held accountable under international law.
Artists in Gaza are using any means they have to document their own genocide and demand their right to life. They are dancing on rubble, drawing with charcoal from their burnt-out homes and using tents as their canvas. As artists in Ireland, we cannot abandon them. APARTHEID-FREE ARTS considers this invitation abhorrent while the USA funds and abets the ongoing genocide in Gaza. We stand in solidarity with Palestine, and act collectively with solidarity groups in protest at the use of our Dáil by those complicit in countless murders in Gaza, the West Bank and across the occupied territories.
THE IRISH ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT has campaigned for Palestinian human rights since our founding in 2003. We condemn the current genocidal war being inflicted by Israel on the people of Gaza and the West Bank, where over 70% of the victims have been women and children. A war that has witnessed slaughter on an unprecedented scale, the systematic destruction of the means to sustain life, the institutionalisation of rape as a weapon of war, the forced starvation and multiple displacements of Gazans, the extrajudicial assassinations in other countries’ sovereign territory and the threat of a wider regional war. This is all enabled by Western powers, particularly the USA which has provided the necessary arms for Israel to conduct its war crimes. Israel would agree to a peace deal immediately if this arms funding was stopped. Yet Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was recently feted in the White House and received standing ovations in Congress. It is therefore unbelievable that the Irish Government has invited members of the US Congress, the same ones who applauded Netanyahu, to use the Irish Dáil chamber on the 23rd of August. This invitation, along with the prolonged use of Shannon Airport by the US military, implicates all Irish people in the current Gaza genocide. We demand that it be rescinded.
PALS FOR PALESTINE is a group of 250+ citizens who stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine. We are mostly new activists horrified by the lack of meaningful action to stop the ongoing genocide in Palestine. We strongly condemn the decision by Senator Malcolm Byrne, Senator Mark Daly, and Deputy Paul McAuliffe to host US government officials in Irish Government Buildings on August 23rd. The US government’s unwavering support for, and continued financing and supply of arms to Israel’s genocidal campaign against Palestinian civilians is well-documented. We find it reprehensible and utterly unacceptable that this invitation is extended to a government implicated in severe war crimes, purportedly on behalf of the Irish people. This invitation starkly contradicts the Irish public’s support for an immediate ceasefire and for the prosecution of Israeli war criminals. We request that the invitation be withdrawn immediately.
IRISH HEALTHCARE WORKERS FOR PALESTINE strongly object to the hosting of US politicians by our government, in our Dáil. Munitions manufactured in and supplied and funded by the USA have been raining down on Gaza for 10 months, wreaking devastation and making it the most dangerous place in the world for children and for healthcare workers. It is not acceptable to us that our country entertains politicians representing a country that is facilitating human rights abuses and breaches of international law on a scale not seen in our lifetimes. The USA is openly supporting an apartheid regime that allows torture, sexual assault, and murder in its institutions, and that is depriving an entire population of the basic necessities of life. To entertain representatives of the USA without holding them to account is to be complicit, and is not acceptable to us as health care workers.
We represent a cross-section of Irish society. We are demanding that this invitation is immediately rescinded and that our Government makes it clear that until the United States ceases supplying arms and its unwavering support to Israel, they will not be welcome in any government building.
If you support our demand, please make this known to us as this collective action group for Palestine is compiling a list of all Dáil and Seanad members who do not oppose this so the people of Ireland can know what their representatives stand for.
People in Ireland in Solidarity with Palestine
Reference: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2024.2351261?s=%2009
