It is Time for Irish America to Stand With Palestine
Over the last several weeks, the world has watched, mostly idly by, as Israeli settlers began dispossessing Palestinians of their homes in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheik Jarrah. Activists, historians, and writers, especially from Palestine, see these actions as a continuation of the 1948 Nakba, and a state-sponsored program of ethnic cleansing. Palestinians throughout Jerusalem and the occupied territories began protesting in solidarity with the residents of Sheik Jarrah. The Israeli state met these protestors with a disproportionate, indiscriminate and militarized response. These provocations continued at Al Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, with Israeli police and “defense” forces firing hundreds of flash and sound grenades, as well as rubber-coated steel bullets, at the Palestinians gathered in and around the mosque. This continued violence has now led to — at the time of this writing — the murder of 232 Palestinians, including 65 children, by Israel. In return, rockets from Hamas have killed 12 Israelis.
Through all of this, the man at the helm of the world’s biggest economy and best resourced military power, and an Irish-American, has encouraged the continued murders of Palestinians. Joe Biden is the most powerful person of Irish descent in the world. The (partitioned) island-nation he so often likes to claim association to, has a military budget only 1/721 the size of the U.S. Meanwhile, the U.S. is able to provide about $3.8 billion dollars of weapons funding to Israel annually. Ireland has a temporary seat on the UN Security Council while the U.S. is one of its five permanent members with the power to veto any resolution it dislikes. The U.S.’s continuous funding and political support for Israel while under the leadership of an Irish-American is to the great shame of Ireland. This should imbue every Irish-American who claims the title with a sense of guilt that motivates them to action. Now is the time for Irish America to join its family across the sea in solidarity with Palestine.
Solidarity with the oppressed and a sense of justice are part of the Irish tradition. In 1841, over fifty thousand Irish, including its most prominent politician Daniel O’Connell, signed the Address from the People of Ireland to their Countrymen and Countrywomen in America to encourage their compatriots to support the Abolitionist movement. Four years later, Frederick Douglass spent four months in Ireland and in a letter describing his time on the island said, “I have spent some of the happiest moments of my life since landing in this country.” Throughout the early 1900s, Irish writers and organizers like James Connolly worked to build an international, socialist, labor movement as a response to the exploitation of Ireland’s working class. Marcus Garvey, one of the pioneers of Black nationalism, drew some of his inspiration from the Irish Republican movement and Sinn Fein. In turn, the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland made connections with the Civil Rights Movement and Black activists and organizers in the U.S. As Brian Dooley cites in his book Black and Green, one Derry protestor’s banner read “Derry’s Little Rock Calls for Fair Play.”
Often though, there has been a disconnect between how Irish and Irish-Americans view their relationships to oppressed peoples. Bernadette Devlin McAliskey famously spurned the Irish American community and highlighted this disconnect during her 1969 tour of the U.S. Devlin had been deeply involved in the civil rights movement that took off in Northern Ireland in the late 60s. In 1969, she became the youngest person ever elected to Parliament. She also participated in the Battle of the Bogside — an uprising by residents of the Catholic Bogside neighborhood in Derry, Northern Ireland, against provocations by Protestant loyalists and the police that is seen as the first conflict of the Troubles.
Set to travel to the U.S. later in the year, Devlin’s involvement at the Bogside in August, 1969, made it imperative to get her quickly out of the North. At her various speaking engagements in New York City, Philadelphia, and Detroit, Devlin connected the civil rights struggle in Northern Ireland with the Civil Rights Movement of Black Americans. During her speech in Detroit she said: “I cannot understand the mental conflict of some of our Irish-Americans who will fight forever for the struggle for justice in Ireland, and yet who play the role of the oppressor and will not stand shoulder to shoulder with their fellow Black Americans.” Many of her audiences were unreceptive to these comparisons and calls for solidarity with Black Americans. With tensions growing between Devlin and the Irish-American community over ideological differences, and debates over where the funds raised from her tour would go, she cut her trip short after only two weeks.
While many parts of Irish America have historically struggled to relate with the oppressed, such ties have come more naturally to the Irish, especially those in the North. There are even instances of direct links between Ireland and Palestine. Just this week, thanks to an excellent article by John Wright, I was able to read a letter from Palestinian prisoners to the family of IRA prisoner Bobby Sands after his fatal hunger strike in Long Kesh prison in 1981. I have reprinted it in full here:
“To the families of the martyrs oppressed by the British ruling class. To the families of Bobby Sands and his martyred comrades.
We, revolutionaries of the Palestinian people who are under the terrorist rule of Zionism, write you this letter from the desert prison of Nafha.
We extend our salutes and solidarity with you in the confrontation against the oppressive terrorist rule enforced upon the Irish people by the British ruling elite.
We salute the heroic struggle of Bobby Sands and his comrades, for they have sacrificed the most valuable possession of any human being. They gave their lives for freedom.
From here in Nafha prison, where savage snakes and desert sands penetrate our cells, from here under the yoke of Zionist occupation, we stand alongside you. From behind our cell bars, we support you, your people and your revolutionaries who have chosen to confront death.
Since the Zionist occupation, our people have been living under the worst conditions. Our militants who have chosen the road of liberty and chosen to defend our land, people and dignity, have been suffering for many years. In the prisons, we are confronting Zionist oppression and their systematic application of torture. Sunlight does not enter our cell. Basic necessities are not provided. Yet we confront the Zionist hangmen, the enemies of life.
Many of our militant comrades have been martyred under torture by the fascists allowing them to bleed to death. Others have been martyred because Israeli prison administrators do not provide needed medical care.
The noble and just hunger strike is not in vain. In our struggle against the occupation of our homeland, for freedom from the new Nazis, it stands as a clear symbol of the historical challenge against the terrorists. Our people in Palestine and in the Zionist prisons are struggling as your people are struggling against the British monopolies and we will both continue until victory.
On behalf of the prisoners of Nafha, we support your struggle and cause of freedom against English domination, against Zionism and against fascism in the world.”
In 2017, the 1981 letter was answered by the Bobby Sands Trust, reciprocating solidarity with Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike for better conditions, lengthier family visits, and an end to solitary confinement.
The connections between the Irish and other oppressed groups are more than just sentimental histories. Just in the last week, as Israel mercilessly rained down U.S.-manufactured munitions on Gaza, Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney issued several strong statements condemning the violence, calling for a ceasefire, and stating Ireland’s government would not stop bringing attention to these issues. These comments were so upsetting to the Israeli state that it summoned Ireland’s ambassador to Israel, Kyle O’Sullivan, to a meeting with their foreign office to express their displeasure. With its rotating seat on the UN Security Council, Ireland has joined with every other member of the international body in calling for a ceasefire.
Well, almost every other member. More than once in the last week, the U.S. and President Biden have used their veto to shoot down these statements. On May 15th, the Biden White House tweeted that the President called Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to assure them of their continued support without a single mention of the hundreds of murdered Palestinians. Then, just days later, Biden approved a $735 million dollar weapons sale to Israel in a move mostly supported by the Democrat-controlled House; again, displaying how imperialism and gun running are able to consistently garner bipartisan support. The Biden administration and the U.S. Congress continue to be international outliers in their willingness to support an apartheid state that has zero hesitancy to use deadly force against civilians and journalists. All of which are considered war crimes under international law. On Friday, a ceasefire was agreed to by Israel and Hamas brokered by Egypt. The Biden White House quickly took credit for a “behind-the-scenes push” to assure the stability of the ceasefire, but it must be asked why Biden did not simply support the earlier UN resolutions?
Biden has consistently invoked his Irish heritage throughout his political career. During the 2020 election, he used this part of his story to position himself as more approachable compared to the disconnected, elitism of Trump. At one of their presidential debates Biden went as far to say people like Trump “looked down their nose at people like Irish Catholics like me…on people who don’t have money.” In March, he compared the situations of migrants and refugees fleeing Central America with his great-grandfather’s exodus from Ireland during the Famine. And who wouldn’t feel comforted by a President who remembers their everyday, working-class background and the morals they were raised with? For as much as the President likes to invoke this rhetoric, he consistently forgets such ethnic ties and traditions when enacting foreign policy.
Although he styles himself as one of Ireland’s favorite sons, Biden has forgotten much of what it actually means to identify with Ireland. For him, the American in ‘Irish American’ is what truly matters. The Irish part can be discarded as soon as it becomes inconvenient to demand an apartheid state prevent violence in the streets against Palestinians or cease the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza. It should be noted that the current ceasefire Biden quickly touted makes no changes to separation walls, the continued growth of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the political rights of Palestinians, or any of the main issues that mark daily life under the Israeli occupation. Just one day after the ceasefire, Al Jazeera reported on a growing presence of Israeli police in the Sheik Jarrah neighborhood. If the Irish American with the most power to affect change for Palestinians refuses to do so, then it is up to all other Irish Americans, especially the young generations, to heed the call.
If our leaders do not have the political will or moral courage to guide our communities towards justice, tradition, and solidarity then we shall appoint new leaders or chart our own path. Everyone can contact their Congressional representatives, amplify the stories of Palestinians through social media, donate to organizations on the ground in Palestine, and support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. It is time for every Irish American to remember our roots and stand unequivocally with Palestine.
“The time is always right to do what is right.” — MLK Jr.
