Why the Irish Support Palestine and Why I Agree with Them

What do Palestinians and Irishmen have in common? They both have a history of dealing with colonialism at the hands of the British and oppression at the hands of supremacist states. They both have a history of fighting guerrilla wars against military occupiers. They both have a history of fighting for the cause of national liberation for their countries. And they both have a history of having their internal politics messed up by partition plans.

What does Israel have in common with the British? They are a country that has a history of trying to establish what is essentially an ethnostate that fits into a certain idea of whiteness. “How so?” you may ask. Simple, Israel is one of the most racist countries to have ever existed in human history. When Israel became independent in 1948, the Israeli Defense Forces, having won the First Arab-Israeli War, began a brutal military crackdown similar to what the British Army did after the Easter Rising known as the Nakba.

The Nakba was a violent purge of Palestinians where thousands of civilians were either killed or forced to flee their homes by the victorious Zionist forces. Since then, the continuing drama of the Palestinians has only persisted. During the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the British Army would crack down on civil rights activists with brute force. The most infamous example of this taking place was a violent massacre on January 30, 1972 known as “Bloody Sunday” in which peaceful demonstrators were shot by soldiers with live ammunition to disperse the crowd. In the beginning of the same month, David “Dado” Elazar was appointed as the IDF’s ninth Chief of Staff and would later go on to commit similar atrocities against Palestinian demonstrators in their struggle for freedom.

As you can see, the Irish and the Palestinians have a shared history of resisting injustice in their own respective countries. But where do I stand on this? Okay, I have a confession to make. I used to believe that Zionism was merely an advocacy movement for Jews to be able to live in the Holy Land as described in the Bible, but now I see that this was always a veneer right from the start. Ever since Benjamin Netanyahu openly implemented genocidal policies and used genocidal rhetoric against Palestinians in the Gaza War of 2023 without facing opposition from the rest of the Israeli government, my eyes have been opened to the truth with a wake-up call.

For more information, visit decolonizepalestine.com and have a happy Saint Patrick’s Day and a happy Ramadan!