First hit by the Israeli genocide and now Storm Byron storm, each devastating in their own way, leaving in their wake a trail of destruction and human misery.
The storm at least is impersonal. Blind, it does not see the victims it claims, deaf, it does not hear their anguished cries. The storm is not cruel, merely nature working itself through the ecosystem. That sixteen Palestinian lives have been lost thus far - including three children from exposure to the cold, one only months old and born during the genocide - is not down to any cruelty on the part of the storm and very much down to Israeli malevolence. Zionist barbarism has left people defenceless and unable to adequately shelter themselves from the harsh elements.
Perhaps some preaching pastord will proclaim it the work of the Lord, sending yet another biblical plague so that the home of the Palestinians can be auctioned off to some Brooklyn Jew who previously never set foot in the territory. A New Yorker with no roots in Palestine can go there but a refugee family has no right to return. There is a callous cruelty about Israel that no storm, regardless of its ferocity, possesses.
At noon, we will gather again in West Street as part of Drogheda Stands With Palestine, probably shuffling from foot to foot and shivering in response to the overnight temperature drop. None of us will hum the cretinous lyric from the Bono-Geldof collaboration of yesteryear, Well, tonight thank God it’s them instead of you. You probably would need to be a millionaire or an evangelical pastor, to think there is a god worth thanking for having inflicted misery on someone else rather than on you.
As we leave here today to return to warm homes and shelter, the warning of the World Heath Organisation will help propel us back to the same spot next Saturday; that thousands of Gazan families were:
Meanwhile, our governing class - that can race with Olympian speed to oppose the renaming of Herzog Park in Dublin - ensures its feet are firmly anchored in quicksand when asked to sort out the Occupied Territories Bill. To get it to move will require a Storm Byron of protest, a tsunami of public anger. It is deeply shameful that a government of a society forged in the crucible of anti-imperialist struggle can be so deferential to what is a Western imperialist mindset. Irish people more than many have an experiential understanding that Western tolerance for and indeed approval of genocide, is rooted in a long tradition of colonialism, imperialism and racism. UN investigator Francesca Albanese nailed it in her comment:
She also went on to lambast the British Labour government which is more determined to prosecute pensioners for opposing genocide than it is to preventing the genocide that is being opposed, capturing in her observations a lineage from Israel all the way back to the British state.
Storm Byron will most likely not return anytime soon. The same cannot be said of Storm Zion. It has never gone away.
sheltering in low-lying or debris-filled coastal areas with no drainage or protective barriers . . . Winter conditions, combined with poor water and sanitation, are expected to drive a surge in acute respiratory infections.
Meanwhile, our governing class - that can race with Olympian speed to oppose the renaming of Herzog Park in Dublin - ensures its feet are firmly anchored in quicksand when asked to sort out the Occupied Territories Bill. To get it to move will require a Storm Byron of protest, a tsunami of public anger. It is deeply shameful that a government of a society forged in the crucible of anti-imperialist struggle can be so deferential to what is a Western imperialist mindset. Irish people more than many have an experiential understanding that Western tolerance for and indeed approval of genocide, is rooted in a long tradition of colonialism, imperialism and racism. UN investigator Francesca Albanese nailed it in her comment:
Palestinians aren’t counted as civilians, doctors, lawyers…they are killable and torturable just because they are Palestinians.
She also went on to lambast the British Labour government which is more determined to prosecute pensioners for opposing genocide than it is to preventing the genocide that is being opposed, capturing in her observations a lineage from Israel all the way back to the British state.
Israel inherited practices from the British mandate to enforce on the Palestinians, such as home demolitions and the systemisation of torture. It was part of a colonial architecture through which the British established their presence in Palestine then gave away a land that was never theirs to give . . . We can’t understand what’s happening today without going back to British colonialism.
And yet, what we get from the Fine Fail/Fine Gael duopoly are thoughts and prayers.
Just prior to the storm reaching Gaza Israeli settlers made an intrusion into the territory. One invader said on video:
The entire land of Israel is ours, and after the terrible massacre we experienced, we need to understand this and internalise it and treat the enemy accordingly. Take territory, occupy and settle.
Storm Byron will most likely not return anytime soon. The same cannot be said of Storm Zion. It has never gone away.
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