Week 18 - The Gaza Genocide

Saturday 10/02/24 was week 18 of the weekly protest in Cork City, Ireland, asking for a free Palestine and an immediate ceasefire.

If, like me, you have seen videos and images even since that day with today only being Tuesday, each and every day and night is a living hell for those in Gaza. Shredded limbs, children cradled in a parents arms as they wail at the sky. Hollow utterances from grey-skinned US leaders as they mumble 'over-the-top'.

I watch political commentators, alongside ordinary people in selfie mode, who all proclaim their disgust, their horror, their righteous anger that this is not being stopped. We are all utterly changed forever in our worldview. More sad. More angry. When we chant 'In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians!' we feel that deeply. A sense that unless Palestine is free, none of us are free, because what does it mean for us? That our governments did nothing? In the case of UK and US citizens, that their governments assisted in genocide. Did we? In Ireland? What actions have we taken? We platform the Israeli ambassador instead of ejecting her. We agree to hand a bowl of shamrocks to Joe Biden in the US for Paddy's Day instead of boycotting the event. The government doesn't pass the occupied territories bill, to ban trade between illegal settlements and Ireland.

And we are meant to be the good ones, oh look how Ireland supports Palestine. Yes, we on the ground do, we the ordinary people of Ireland do. But our government is not representing the will of the people on this issue. We want action.