Yesterday saw a number of us take to the streets of Drogheda in solidarity with the Palestinians currently being mercilessly pummeled by the vastly superior military force of the Israeli state.
It is seven years since we last turned out, so it was reassuring to see some of the same faces from our previous outing. Then, the terror war on Gaza was being waged with unmitigated ferocity, a favourite target of the war criminals - Palestinian children. They were murdered as they played soccer on a beach, in their homes, schools and hospitals.
Before the main weekly vigil kicked off in 2014, myself and my wife stood alone at the footbridge across the Boyne trying to focus attention on the plight of the Palestinians. We were joined by a Croatian mother and son, just in the country ten days. Israeli terror is something like a bad smell: just something you expect to announce its presence and which will not go away just because it is ignored.
How yesterday's vigil got off the ground I am not certain. Covid regulations are still in place and the event could not as easily be put together as on previous occasions. The interest was certainly there and word of mouth seemed to have carried the day. During the week I asked a friend who had stood with us in 2014 if anything was happening. She said she was going to stand at the Tholsel with a flag at noon on Saturday. I said I would join her and that's pretty much how it happened. Others turned up and our Pod for Palestine was visible to all, many who stopped to talk or bump their horns.
Most of those I recognised were from Sinn Fein which has consistently done the heavy lifting in terms of putting a presence on the streets in support of the Palestinians. Labour Party members later told me had they known, they too would have been there. I am sure the same people will be there next week if the savagery does not abate and I hope as many as possible will stand alongside us.
Most of those I recognised were from Sinn Fein which has consistently done the heavy lifting in terms of putting a presence on the streets in support of the Palestinians. Labour Party members later told me had they known, they too would have been there. I am sure the same people will be there next week if the savagery does not abate and I hope as many as possible will stand alongside us.
There seems to be a greater unity across the political divide this time. Tanaiste Leo Varadker spoke for many when he said:
It would have been preferable had he gone as far as Richard Boyd Barret:
But his identifying Israel as an aggressor is significant when the terror state relies on the silent acquiescence of others.
Annexation, expulsion, plantation and the killing of civilians, deliberately or in terms of collateral damage, are not the behaviours of a democratic state in the 21st century and it is simply unacceptable that a democratic state or any state should behave in this way.
It would have been preferable had he gone as far as Richard Boyd Barret:
Given the outrageous breaches of international law, is it not time to expel the Israeli ambassador and to impose sanctions on the rogue state of Israel for its crimes against international law and against humanity in Palestine?
But his identifying Israel as an aggressor is significant when the terror state relies on the silent acquiescence of others.
As the Ballymurphy massacre inquest verdict illustrated this week, the armies of the West commit atrocity pretty much like those they are quick to condemn for committing atrocity, and Israel is no different. The mote in the Israeli eye happens to appear much larger because of its history: a state that ostensibly came into existence as a defensive reaction to war crimes perpetrated against Jews, has been one of the West's most frequent practitioners of war crimes since its inception. Internationally, the numbers willing to approve of its sense of entitlement to murder at will is shrinking inexorably.
Israel stands ever at the ready to put Hindley and Brady types in uniform, arm them, throw them into confrontation with unarmed children whom they proceed to murder before cynically proclaiming that the infanticides belong to the most moral army on earth. Hayim Bialik, a posthumous Israeli national poet, wrote more than a century ago that "even Satan has not yet invented the revenge for the blood of a little child."
Israel stands ever at the ready to put Hindley and Brady types in uniform, arm them, throw them into confrontation with unarmed children whom they proceed to murder before cynically proclaiming that the infanticides belong to the most moral army on earth. Hayim Bialik, a posthumous Israeli national poet, wrote more than a century ago that "even Satan has not yet invented the revenge for the blood of a little child."
The world cannot feign ignorance of the despicable barbarism visited on Jewish children by the Wehrmacht and SS during the course of World War 2. Walter Karl Ernst August von Reichenau approved the murder of 90 Jewish children who were left orphaned after the massacre of their parents at Bila Tserkva in the Ukraine. He did so only after strong opposition from a Nazi officer, Helmuth Groscurth, who had intervened to retrieve the children from a church where they had been crammed and denied all food and water.
Groscurth would go on to comment in his diaries:
I wonder if there is anyone of that calibre in the Israeli Defence Forces willing to publicly speak out in real time against the mass murder of children. If some officers in the world's most moral army can up their game to the level of one Nazi officer who had the mettle to oppose infanticide, it might just make a difference.
Groscurth would go on to comment in his diaries:
My efforts to intervene in the defence of the Jewish orphans ended for me a rebuke from the Field Marshal von Reichenau. But honestly? I didn’t care about that. However, I was shocked by the bestiality that was in the German people ... The war has made all of us monsters. It has destroyed the national psyche. Judging by what I have written here, it would seem that I'm the good one. But the truth is different. I am an accomplice to all the crimes. We all are. We didn’t oppose the dictatorship of Hitler, and now everyone has to bear the consequences. Germans can’t and shouldn’t win this war. Definitely not ...
I wonder if there is anyone of that calibre in the Israeli Defence Forces willing to publicly speak out in real time against the mass murder of children. If some officers in the world's most moral army can up their game to the level of one Nazi officer who had the mettle to oppose infanticide, it might just make a difference.
⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.
Drogheda out again today - made it back from Dublin just in time to take part. Glad to have been there with so many others protesting Israeli terrorism which according to the UN has created a dire humanitarian situation.
ReplyDeleteBeing greeted by TD Ged Nash of the Labour Party at today's protest in Drogheda in support of the Palestinians facing a dire humanitarian crisis
ReplyDeleteDrogheda Shows Its Support For Palestine
ReplyDelete