Almost a thousand people marched in Dublin on Saturday 9th June to protest at the 40 year of the Occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the remaining parts of Jerusalem. On a day of brilliant sunshine, marchers from various human rights groups, trade unions, political parties and Palestinian solidarity campaigns made their way through the city centre.
***image2***The route of Saturday’s march underlined the need for Western governments to stop supporting Apartheid Israel, stopping outside the Dail (the Dublin parliament) and the offices of the European Union, which has imposed sanctions on Palestine whilst abandoning itâs principles of justice to remain allied with the Occupation. The march ended symbolically outside the General Post Office in O’Connell Street where the 1916 Easter Rising, Irelandâs own intifada, began.
Here, the marchers were addressed by a number of speakers who called for an end to the Occupation. Raymond Deane of the IPSC, spoke about needs for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israeli.
He told the assembled crowd: âWe must demand that the Irish government call for sanctions against the apartheid state of Israel similar to those which helped to end South African apartheid. We must set an example by boycotting Israeli goods – and our supermarkets at present are full of them, in particular POTATOES, as if we had no Irish potatoes! And by supporting a comprehensive sporting, cultural and academic boycott of Israel.â
***image3***Hikmat Ajjuri of the Palestinian Delegation-general in Ireland, and Dr. Bassam Al-Nasr of the Palestinian community in Ireland spoke about the need to stop the international boycott of the Palestinian government; Jewish feminist playwright Margaretta D’Arcy spoke of the strength and the suffering of Palestinian women under occupation; and Saed Abu Hijleh, a Palestinian academic and poet, whom the Occupation had tried to prevent from traveling abroad, put forward a vision for justice and overcoming occupation and apartheid within one state, democratic and for all.
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(more photos on: https://www.indymedia.ie/article/82954)