An estimated crowd of 1,000 people staged a three-hour demonstration and march through Dublin city centre on Saturday afternoon featuring calls for an immediate cease fire in Gaza and the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador to Ireland.
The march which saw addresses at both the Garden of Remembrance in Parnell Square and at The Department of Foreign Affairs on St Stephen’s Green, was organised by the Irish Neutrality League and attended by members of a wide range of civil society groups calling for peace, including the human rights group Afri and Quakers, the Society of Friends.
Addressing the gathering at Parnell Square Sarah O’Rourke of the Irish Neutrality League said neutrality was not about doing nothing, but followed an anti-imperialist tradition of standing on the side of those being oppressed.
She said the demonstration was necessary because the Government “is not listening to us”. She said it “is not enough to say what is happening [in Gaza] is terrible” and called for the Government to “take action and expel the Israeli ambassador”.
Following a slow walk through the city centre, which was led by members of the Palestinian community in Ireland, Richard Boyd-Barrett of People Before Profit told the crowd he shared Ms O’Rourke’s sentiments. He said neutrality meant Ireland should never side with empires and colonial powers.
But he said the Government had brought shame on the Irish people for buying the narrative that the Gaza conflict was about Israel’s security and self defence, when it was about Israel’s genocidal attacks on Palestinians. He also called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador and support for a “Boycott Israel day of action on November 9th”.
“What is happening in Palestine is another chapter in the dark history of genocide, only this time it is being played out on our television screens”.
Clare Daly MEP told the crowd that if they did not trust “Leo and Michael [the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Tánaiste Micheál Martin] on domestic matters” they should not trust them “when they say they have no plans to interfere with our neutrality. We are not buying that”, she said. She also called for Irish naval vessels to be sued to transport aid to Gaza.
Cllr Daithí Doolan of Sinn Féin said the people of Palestine were entitle to “national self-determination” as the Irish had achieved. He said the crowd’s calls, as they marched, for an immediate cease fire in Gaza showed they were aligned with the majority of Irish people, while it was the Government which was out of step.
Brid Smith TD said the stance of governments in the developed world in not taking action against Israel showed there was “something fundamentally wrong with democracy”. She said it was time for action from the Irish Government and she too called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador.
Jim Roche, spokesman for the Irish Neutrality League said the demonstration was also against the war in Ukraine.
He said “the contradictory attitudes towards both wars show up the double standards of the western powers, who have, since February 26th, 2022, feigned support for the people of Ukraine and escalated the war there for their own nefarious, militaristic ambitions.
“Yet they have thrown the people of Gaza to the wolves by backing Israel’s onslaught and – despite more than 9,000 deaths of civilians in Gaza – refusing to press Israel for an immediate ceasefire”.
