'Enough is Enough!' - 9 June Dublin Demo

national | rights, freedoms and repression | news report

Tuesday June 12, 2007 11:58

by Caitlin Ni Chonaill - Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign Report

A report by the IPSC of the demonstration held in Dublin on Saturday 9 June - the Irish response to the worldwide call for an end to the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.

On Saturday 9 June, a day of brilliant sunshine, close to a thousand people marched round Dublin city centre to protest at the 40 year occupation of Palestinian land by the Israeli army. The banners of various human rights groups, trade unions, political parties and Palestinian solidarity campaigns could be seen.

This was just one demonstration among many held around the world on a day which marked the 40th anniversary of the 1967 'Six Day War' during which Israel illegally invaded the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This now constitutes the longest military occupation in modern times, and is even longer if one includes the years since 1948 and the ethnic cleansing of thousands of Palestinian villages to make way for the state of Israel.

Yesterday tens of thousands in Europe marched, and thousands in Israel and Palestine also demonstrated peacefully against forty years of Occupation. With many more expected to march in Washington today, the international community is declaring that 'Enough is Enough!' If Palestinian society is not to be wiped out, Israel's illegal expansion must be stopped. Western governments must stop supporting a state, Israel, which is brazenly stealing land through brutal military advances coupled with the construction of illegal settlements. They must stop supporting a state, Israel, which operates a regime of apartheid akin to that in white South Africa.

The route of Saturday's march sought to underline this, stopping outside the Dail and the offices of the European Union whose representatives have imposed sanctions on Palestine and cravenly abandoned every principle of justice and human rights in order to remain 'friends' of Israel. The march ended symbolically outside the General Post Office in O'Connell Street where the 1916 intifada had begun.

Resounding applause greeted speeches from Raymond Deane of the IPSC, who spoke about the deficiencies of current EU policy; Hikmat Ajjuri of the Palestinian Delegation-general in Ireland, and Dr. Bassam Al-Nasr of the Palestinian community in Ireland, who spoke about the need to stop the international boycott of the Palestinian government; Jewish feminist playwright Margaretta D'Arcy who reminded us of the strength and the suffering of Palestinian women under occupation; and from Saed Abu Hijleh, a Palestinian academic and poet, whom the Israelis had tried to prevent from travelling abroad, who spoke about the desirability of a one-state solution.