Responding to injustice in the world caused by war and other violent conflict
The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign has called another National Demonstration for Palestine on Saturday, 9th November.
The march will begin at the Garden of Remembrance at 1pm and finish outside the Dáil Continue reading “National March for Palestine this Saturday, 9th November 2024”
Lex Innocentium, The Law of the Innocents, 21st century, was launched on International Peace Day, September 21st, 2024, in Birr, Co. Offaly.
Continue reading “Lex Innocentium Launch, The Law of the Innocents, 21st Century”
The time is now. We endorse the Pass the OTB Campaign. We urge the Irish government to pass the OTB before the election is held. #ActNow #PassTheOTB
‘No more time to waste’
Ireland should pass the Occupied Territories Bill
urgently, says civil society campaign
Campaign to Pass the Occupied Territories Bill welcomes change in Government position, but urges Coalition parties to progress the Bill before an election.
A coalition of over 35 civil society organisations, trade unions, academics and political figures has urged the Government to move quickly in light of the updated Attorney General’s advice, and to pass the Occupied Territories Bill before a general election is held. The decision by the Government to formally refer the Bill to next Stage, into the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs, is a step in the right direction – but that must happen immediately.
The Bill, first tabled in 2018 by Independent Senator Frances Black, would ban trade with the illegal Israeli settlements built on occupied Palestinian land. Both the Dáil and the Seanad have already voted in favour of the Bill, but despite this the current and previous Governments have refused to pass it based on advice from previous Attorneys General that it would breach EU law.
However, updated legal advice delivered this week from the current Attorney General, Rossa Fanning, has now given the green light for the passage of the Bill. The updated AG advice draws heavily on the historic International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion delivered in July, which found that the Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land were illegal and that all countries were obliged not to trade with them.
Civil society organisations have been calling on the Government to pass the Occupied Territories Bill for over six years. If passed, Ireland would become the first Western country to ban trade with the illegal Israeli settlements, which are considered the key driver of poverty and a host of human rights violations against Palestinians and the main impediment to their right to self-determination.
As Israel continues its military offensive across the occupied Palestinian territory and more recently Lebanon, the Campaign to Pass the OTB is calling on the Irish Government to pass the Bill before an election is held, and to hold Israel accountable for its flagrant disregard for international law and civilian life. This would build on the leadership shown when Ireland became the first Western country to ban imports from Apartheid South Africa in 1987. Within a few years, most other Western countries followed suit, precipitating the end of South Africa’s Apartheid regime.
Caoimhe de Barra, CEO of Trócaire, and a spokesperson for the Campaign to Pass the Occupied Territories Bill, said: “The Government’s change in position is welcome, but Palestinians cannot wait until after the Irish general election for Israel to be held accountable for its war crimes. Today in the Northern Gaza Strip, civilians are being left to die under the rubble of their own homes, and face starvation due to dwindling humanitarian supplies as a result of the Israeli armed forces’ siege. We are calling on the Government to ensure this Bill is enacted before the forthcoming elections in Ireland. This will put Ireland in a leadership role, as it was with Apartheid South Africa, in bringing about effective trade sanctions that will clearly state to Israel, you must respect international law and end this unlawful occupation of Palestinian land and war on the Palestinian people.”
Conor O’Neill, Head of Policy at Christian Aid Ireland and a spokesperson for the Campaign to Pass the Occupied Territories Bill said: “This is a big moment, because the key legal barrier blocking the Occupied Territories Bill has just fallen. As we have argued for six years, there is no legal impediment to passage of this legislation. The historic ICJ opinion in July made it crystal clear, and the updated Attorney General advice has now given Government the green light to pass it. If we need to make small changes or technical amendments to strengthen and improve then it we can, but that work should begin immediately. There’s no reason not to make progress before an election.”
Éamonn Meehan, Chair of Sadaka-the Ireland Palestine Alliance, and a spokesperson for the Campaign to Pass the Occupied Territories Bill, said:“We welcome the announcement by the Government that passing the Occupied Territories bill is lawful. For more than seventy-five years the people of Palestine have been attacked, driven from their homes and lands, killed with impunity and denied their basic rights to equality and self-determination. It is finally time for us to accept that we cannot, legally or morally, continue to trade with the 750,000 illegal settlers and their enterprises who enrich themselves and Israel from the stolen resources of Palestine and who at the same time impoverish millions of Palestinians in their own land. We strongly encourage the public to keep pushing until the bill is passed and we expect every political party will now support getting this essential legislation through before the elections.”
Owen Reidy, General Secretary, Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said: “Thousands of trade union members have been taking to the streets with many others for over a year now drawing attention to the slaughter and ongoing genocide in Gaza with more than 40,000 people killed, including women and children. It is our strongly held view that as a result of the recent ICJ ruling, we cannot continue to trade with settlements and that it is imperative that the Government agrees to progress the Occupied Territories Bill and get it through Dáil before the election.”
ENDS
For media interviews contact Niamh McCarthy, 0863767533 niamh.mccarthy@trocaire.org
Notes for Editors
• The Campaign to Pass the Occupied Territories Bill is made up of over 35 civil society organisations, trade unions, academics and political figures including Senator Frances Black, Christian Aid Ireland, Trócaire, Sadaka-the Ireland Palestine Alliance, Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), Action Aid Ireland, Amnesty International Ireland, the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU).
• The Occupied Territories Bill was first tabled by Senator Frances Black and would ban trade with the illegal settlements Israel has built on occupied Palestinian land. A copy of the bill, as well as a short briefing note on the its main provisions, is available here: http://www.francesblack.ie/single-post/settlement-goods
• The Bill was passed in full by the Seanad in December 2018. It was then brought by Fianna Fáil into Dáil Éireann, where a strong majority also voted in favour in January 2019, but was blocked by the then minority Fine Gael Government.
• The Bill was supported by every other political party and included in the 2020 general election manifestos of both Fianna Fáil and the Green Party, but omitted from the negotiated Programme for Government at Fine Gael’s insistence. It remains stalled at ‘Second Stage’ in the Dáil, but it could be quickly passed into law with support from this or the next Government.
• There are now more than 750,000 Israeli settlers living in over 140 illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian territory in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In addition, there are a further 191 illegal settler outposts with 23 of those established in 2023 alone. Before the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, which was supposed to deliver an Independent Palestinian State on this territory, the number of illegal settlers was less than 150,000.
The Israeli forces’ assault on Gaza has escalated to a horrifying level of atrocity. Northern Gaza is being wiped off the map. Under the guise of “evacuation,” Israeli forces have ordered the forced displacement of an estimated 400,000 Palestinians trapped in northern Gaza, including Gaza City. This is not an evacuation—this is forced displacement under gunfire. Since 1 October, no food has been allowed into the area, and civilians are being starved and bombed in their homes and their tents.
Hospitals, already overwhelmed, are being ordered to evacuate. They are running out of fuel and essential supplies, while doctors and nurses battle to save lives with what little they have left. The wounded flood in – children, older people, victims of Israeli airstrikes – but with no resources to treat them.
Afri is joining peace groups throughout Ireland in expressing alarm regarding the upcoming proposed changes to the ‘Triple Lock’, which requires UN authorisation along with Cabinet and Dáil approval if our troops are to be deployed overseas.
The Tánaiste has said that the draft legislation will be ready by “the first week of September”, when it will be considered by the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence. The below statement lays out the grounds of our concern.
Triple lock amendment to be published by September at latest – Martin https://www.westmeathexaminer.ie/2024/07/02/triple-lock-amendment-to-be-published-by-september-at-latest-martin/
The statement has been endorsed by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mairéad Maguire, along with peace and neutrality groups such as Afri/Action from Ireland, PANA (the Peace and Neutrality Alliance), World Beyond War Ireland, and INNATE (Irish Network for Nonviolent Action, Training and Education).
Successive polls show the consistent support of Irish voters for active neutrality, which has since the days of Frank Aiken been expressed through genuine UN-led peacekeeping. You will recall our President’s comments on these matters in the lead-up to the 2023 Consultative Forum on International Security Policy.
Even that Forum – widely criticised as restrictive and biased – did not establish a consensus for removing the Triple Lock. Such a measure – permitting even closer involvement in NATO-led military structures and operations – is not the answer to the challenges facing the UN, which Ireland should use our hard-won credit to help reform rather than downgrade.
We call on the government to respect voter wishes and to prevent any erosion of neutrality through the dismantling of the Triple Lock, and to ensure that these widely held concerns are made present in the Joint Committee’s and further deliberations.
Contact your TD and urge them to act. List of TDs and emails here.
DOUBLESPEAK ON THE TRIPLE LOCK: A Citizens’ Statement
The People are being urged to accept a momentous change to our foreign policy in a highly dangerous international situation.
Making such changes without a shared ethical and political consensus is damaging to our democratic Republic and its constitutional order.
Tánaiste Martin has said he is engaging with the Attorney General, other government departments and “key stakeholders” on his proposal to unpick the Triple Lock.
Is it not time to recognise that the People are, under our Constitution, the key stakeholders of our democratic Republic and to respect the repeated solemn Declarations made to us by successive Governments?
As a start, the Joint Oireachtas Committee must invite submissions and presentations from pro-neutrality groups and individuals in its consideration of the forthcoming draft Bill.
Those representatives and parties who defend the Triple Lock must commit themselves, now and in future manifestoes, to its urgent restoration if the current proposal passes.
The Seville Declaration on the Nice Treaty in 2002 spelt out the ‘Triple Lock’, requiring UN authorisation along with Government and Dáil approval if our troops are deployed overseas.
This assurance was repeated in 2009 to get the Lisbon Treaty approved, but the promised ‘Lisbon Protocol’ of 2013 merely redescribed that Treaty, without even mentioning the Triple Lock.
The present Government’s Programme reaffirmed the Triple Lock, its key resting in the People’s hands; now they propose to unpick the UN lever without reference back to us.
Their claim, now, that what we voted for in Nice and Lisbon in fact leaves our hands empty, and their hands free, means that in each referendum Governments were either deceptive or negligently uninformed.
On either scenario the People, fulfilling their constitutional role of “final appeal” under Article 6, were fatally misled in 2002 and 2009, creating a constitutional crisis.
This must be addressed by a genuine, widespread and thorough public scrutiny of our currently incoherent foreign and defence policies, with a Referendum on any further proposals.
Tánaiste Martin’s watered-down ‘Consultative Forum’ was not remotely adequate; even its Chairperson reports “there was not a consensus” on the proposal, despite the predictable “preponderance of views, especially among the experts and practitioners”.
A genuine foreign-policy consensus obtained when Ireland, an emerging ex-colony, joined the UN in 1955, patiently promoting decolonisation, disarmament and UN-directed peacekeeping.
The People endorsed Frank Aiken’s creative work for nuclear disarmament, which reflected the wisdom of Einstein and Russell’s 1955 Manifesto on conflict in the nuclear age:
“Most of us are not neutral in feeling, but, as human beings, we have to remember that… these issues must not be decided by war.”
Frank Aiken echoed this message to the General Assembly in 1957, giving the lie to any depiction of Neutrality as inactive, indifferent or impractical.
The People valued and supported the sacrifices, sometimes of life itself, made on their behalf by Irish UN peacekeepers, civilian and military.
Article 29 commits Ireland, whatever our feelings about a conflict, to strive to resolve the underlying issues in a context of negotiation, arbitration and international law.
The Irish Government therefore joined with the British Government in our Peace Process to achieve decommissioning, declaring their joint opposition to “any use or threat of force”.
This reflected the UN Charter – itself an instrument of International Law – whose very first sentence commits the UN and its members “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”.
The Charter, and our Irish Peace Process, remind us that genuine defence must not become an escalatory threat to ‘the other side’, but must support a sustainable resolution of the issues involved.
The NATO powers with whom the Government now seek ever-closer alignment deplore ‘failures of the UN’ which they have aggravated rather than addressed, not least through illegal wars contrary to the Charter.
They, and other members of ‘the Nuclear Club’, have undermined the UN’s authority, for example on the Middle East, where decades of flouting UN resolutions saw atrocity erupt on 7th October, and Israel indicted for genocide in its response.
It is perverse to invoke ‘the principles of the Charter’, and a self-styled ‘rules-based international order’, while downgrading the only available forum in which the vital needs of people and planet might at last be addressed.
“We the Peoples of the United Nations” urgently need reform to reclaim and implement the Charter, just as we the Irish People require a reaffirmation of the provisions of Bunreacht na hÉireann, and active Neutrality as the basis of our foreign policy.
ENDS
Contact your TD and urge them to act. List of TDs and emails here.
Hiroshima anniversary – Afri calls for Irish leadership in global peacebuilding
Irish peace and justice organisation Afri, along with anti-war groups and peace campaigners from around Ireland attended Irish CND’s Hiroshima commemoration in Dublin today, Tuesday, August 6th.
The annual commemoration took place at the iconic CND cherry tree in Dublin, which was planted in Merrion Square Park on August 6th, 1980, to mark the 79th anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb in the Japanese city of Hiroshima. On August 6th and 9th, 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombings killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict.
Speaking on the day of the commemoration Afri Director Joe Murray said “the shadows of nuclear threats loom larger than ever” and that “the Hiroshima commemoration is a timely reminder of what is at stake and why global peacebuilding is so important. The horrific legacy of Hiroshima reminds us of the urgent need for Ireland to champion disarmament and genuine international cooperation. In a world teetering on the brink of nuclear catastrophe, we must use our voice to steer the course towards peace and justice, ensuring that such devastation never occurs again.”
Afri’s statement adds that:
“At Tuesday’s event Adi Roche, CEO of Chernobyl Children International, restated her warning of the danger of a calamity at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear station in Ukraine. She previously said “We cannot overstate the current critical situation and nuclear threat in Ukraine. If we remain silent, we are playing with a loaded gun and risk a humanitarian Armageddon”. Her warning echoes the words of UN Secretary-General Gutierrez, who earlier this year said that “geopolitical tensions and mistrust have escalated the risk of nuclear warfare to its highest point in decades”.
“Secretary-General Gutierrez’s insistence on preventing a nuclear accident, while the threat of deliberate nuclear conflict looms constantly, expresses his mandate: the first sentence of its Charter commits the UN ‘to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’.
The Charter and the UN’s mandate have been undermined by the increasing contempt of ‘Great Powers’ for its authority. In the Middle East, decades of disregard for UN resolutions saw atrocity erupt on 7th October, and Israel indicted for its genocidal response.
Members of the ‘Nuclear Club’ seem content to dice with planetary death rather than take a lead in reforming and reaffirming ‘our last, best hope’. NATO’s talk about defending International Law and a ‘rules-based order’ is a ruse to subvert genuine global security – except where it can be hijacked for aggressive purposes.
It is baffling and heartbreaking that Official Ireland acquiesced in this destructive process, through the provision of ‘non-lethal military assistance’, and now promotes NATO’s first-strike nuclear-based alliance as the pathway to security and peace. It is utterly implausible to praise the patience, courage and diplomacy of our Peace Process here while insisting that only military victory can be the answer in Ukraine.
It is utterly implausible to celebrate our work for UN disarmament and the achievement of decommissioning at home while failing to confront the US arming of Israel’s war machine and efforts to expand Ireland’s involvement in weapons production. Only minds numbed by the so-called ‘nuclear umbrella’ could explain the sleepwalk towards destruction and disaster.
Removing the UN lever from the ‘Triple Lock’, which requires UN authority whenever our troops deploy overseas, would be a major step away from the real task of peace: using our resources and reputation to help reform and reaffirm effective planetary forums for humanity’s needs and hopes.”
14.04.24. Afri joined thousands of people protesting at Shannon Airport against Ireland’s complicity in war crimes and the genocide in Palestine.
#Gazagenocide #warcrimes #Shannon airport
Photo credit: Joe Buckley Photography
March 14, 2024
In a work entitled “Irish Famine 4,” Palestinian-American journalist and artist Sam Husseini combined grass and paint to commemorate a bitter time in Irish history when starving people died with their mouths stained green because, according to historian Christine Kinealy, their last meal was grass. Shamefully, British occupiers profited from exporting out of Ireland food crops so desperately needed. Over a seven year period, beginning in 1845, one million Irish people died from starvation and related diseases. It was a conscious mass killing. One of the most horrific means of execution we can read about or imagine was employed. The result, an excruciating descent into despair, delirium and bodily immobility while one’s attention, and character, is gradually reduced to extreme hunger and pain.
Now, in the occupied Gaza Strip, weapons dealers benefit from increasing military shipments to Israel. Palestinians, like the Irish, have resorted to eating mixtures of grass and animal feed. The past five months of Israeli siege, bombing, and displacement have killed more than 31,000 people – mostly women and children. The onset of famine will expand that number exponentially, particularly among children.
Human Rights Watch says the Israeli government is starving civilians as a method of warfare in the Gaza Strip. Aiding and abetting this war crime, the U.S. government has approved 100 military sales to Israel over the past five months. U.S. bullets, bombs and guns have helped prevent crucially needed aid from reaching millions of Palestinians. The bombs have buried or destroyed much of the food supplies which could have partially mitigated this horror. Continued attacks have forced vast populations to flee, huddling in the occupation force’s next target, Rafah. The United States continues providing resources and support for this genocide.
On March 11, eight U.S. senators signed a letter to President Biden insisting that ongoing weapons shipments to Israel violate U.S. laws forbidding military aid to regimes obstructing U.S. humanitarian aid.
Additionally, 25 prominent humanitarian and human rights organizations delivered a letter to the President echoing the Senators’ message.
Even as Israel faces mounting pressure from world leaders to stop attacking people in Gaza awaiting relief and stop impeding humanitarian relief shipments, Israel turned back another aid truck. The reason? The shipment included children’s medical kits with scissors useful for applying bandages or cutting away clothing to reach shrapnel.
The Israelis forbid the scissors as a potential dual use weapon. Meanwhile the United States keeps sending Israel guns and bombs which present a far greater threat.
Each day brings new reports of Palestinians, 40 percent of them children, succumbing to disease and death because they are deprived of food, fuel, clean water, medicines, and shelter. Hellish conditions worsen as infectious contamination spreads from decomposing bodies and the chemical contaminants from the shell casings of thousands upon thousands of Israeli and western-supplied bombs dropped on Gaza.
In Northampton, Massachusetts, six activists are on day three of occupying the office of Representative Jim McGovern. They are demanding he call on the president to immediately halt all weapons shipments to Israel, even if Israel allows humanitarian aid into Gaza. And they want Rep. McGovern to publicly call for the United States to stop vetoing U.N. cease-fire resolutions.
“These are desperate times,” says one of the occupiers, Peter Kakos. “We must call for immediate action, and nothing less.” He’s particularly mindful of 17,000 Palestinian children in Gaza who are estimated by UNICEF to be currently unaccompanied or separated from their parents.
Save the Children’s March 12, 2024 report questions what five months of carnage, flight, starvation and disease, on top of nearly 17 years of apartheid blockade, will do to the children in Gaza who survive the brutality now afflicting them.
During a recent visit to Amman, Jordan, I witnessed the anguish and frustration felt by many Palestinians denied any means of relieving the suffering of loved ones.
They had this response to photo-ops taken of U.S. aid drops.
“Are you going to feed starving people so that they can then face genocide from the Israeli Army with a full stomach?” asked my host. “What’s the logic in that? The only humanitarian thing to drop would be to drop all support for Israel’s war on the people of Gaza.”
In May of this year, an Irish NGO called AFRI (Action From Ireland) will hold an annual “famine walk ” to commemorate when hundreds of desperate people trekked in cold and stormy weather to beg mercy from British officials designated to assess who would qualify for small portions of food or tickets to enter a workhouse.
“The weather was terrible,” notes County Mayo’s official record, “with wind and hail beating down upon them. When they arrived in Delphi the Guardians refused them food or their tickets to the workhouse. Needless to say many of them perished on the return journey as fatigue and exhaustion from hunger took hold. Some of those that had energy to start the journey back to Louisburgh were swept into the lake by the heavy squalls.”
Each year, the organizers of AFRI’s famine walk focus on a place in the world afflicted by famine. “This year’s famine walk will focus on the unspeakable horrors being visited on the population of Gaza,” says AFRI’s coordinator, Joe Murray, “with ‘Irish’ President Biden forgetting his history and playing the part of a ‘Black and Tan’ in providing the means to obliterate an entire population.”
It’s heinous to ignore the plight of starving people as was done by the British relief officials in the spring of 1847. But how much crueler is it to bomb the people you are deliberately starving, forcing people to wonder if they will face a quick death or a long and tortuous one?
Yes, these are desperate times. People in the United States ought to occupy local offices of every elected official, denouncing all forms of violence, insisting on an immediate end to any support for Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza. It’s time to acknowledge the futility of war and call for a collective home to be shared by Muslims, Jews, Christians, Bahais, Druze and many others in a secular democratic state encompassing Israel and Palestine. Similarly, the elected representatives should occupy the Oval Office until the President takes action.
Main photo: Irish Famine 4, reproduced with permission from Sam Husseini
Photo credit: Sam Husseini
This article first appeared in The Progressive Magazine.
Kathy Kelly (kathy.vcnv@gmail.com) co-coordinates the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal and is board president of World BEYOND War
On Thursday, February 1st, ‘Brigid of Kildare’, accompanied by members of Afri and StoP, attempted to delivered a letter, a copy of the Downpatrick Declaration and a St. Brigid Peace Cross to Tánaiste Micheál Martin at the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin.
The doors of the Department, however, were firmly closed against Brigid – it seems her message of peace is not welcome in Foreign Affairs. Continue reading “Brigid to bring message of peace to Foreign Affairs on Feb. 1st.”
Afri will once again begin our calendar year with an informal gathering at the bench in Stephens Green commemorating Louie Bennett and her companion Helen Chevenix. All are welcome to meet there at 1 pm on her birthday, on Sunday, 7th January. Continue reading “Louie Bennett Commemoration”