The mass killings by Hamas of Israeli civilians has provided a political quandary for Sinn Féin, which has long been associated with the cause of Palestinian liberation.
The brutality of the attacks and the hostage-taking may cause the party to re-evaluate its position, particularly its dealings with Hamas, the Palestinian militant group classified by the EU as a terrorist organisation.
Like many leftist movements throughout Europe, what was notable from the reaction of the left in Ireland was an avoidance of any direct condemnation of the Hamas attack over last weekend.
Instead, the response was largely either to ignore the atrocity, or to contextualise the attack as a product of Israeli oppression.
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The first response of People Before Profit (PBP) TD Paul Murphy was to criticise the short statement issued by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen condemning the attack where she said Israel had a right to defend itself against such “heinous attacks”.
He responded on X (formerly Twitter): “European Commission President endorsing coming onslaught against Palestinian civilians here.” He made no reference to the Hamas attack.
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A large number of prominent Sinn Féin representatives were out on social media but again direct references to the Hamas attack were avoided.
In response to the same tweet by von der Leyen, Chris Andrews, a Sinn Féin TD for Dublin Bay South, wrote: “It seems that according to the EU and Ireland only Palestine has no right to defend itself against murder, torture and apartheid.”
In his first post on Twitter following the attack, Paul Donnelly, a Sinn Féin TD for Dublin West, also made no mention of Hamas. Instead he wrote: “The Israelis have been systematically destroying any chance of peace in the region. They are an apartheid regime. The EU/US aided and colluded with this apartheid regime. If the EU is to have any credibility today, it needs to stand up for peace and that means standing up to Israel.”
At a Dublin rally for Palestine on Wednesday, Richard Boyd-Barrett of PBP articulated frustration at his sense that the Palestinian cause had been marginalised by western governments for generations.
“Every one of us regrets every single death,” he told the crowd. “We would like to see the end of killing, the end of war, the end of hostage-taking. The only way that can happen is if we get to the root cause of why this is happening. All of the responsibility for the terrible violence we are now witnessing lies on the shoulders of the state of Israel.”
At the time of her interview, Mary Lou McDonald featured a Palestinian flag on her Twitter profile, sending out what many would regard as a mixed message
In the main, over the weekend, Sinn Féin representatives avoided criticising the Hamas atrocity while expressing solidarity for Palestine.
However, on Saturday, the party’s foreign affairs spokesman Matt Carthy, in a statement, said there was no justification for the killing of civilians on any side.
It took until Monday for the party’s leader to condemn the Hamas attack “outright”.
“The targeting of civilians and the taking of hostages is to be condemned outright,” Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald said on RTÉ Radio’s News at One. “Looking at scenes where a lot of young people were out, enjoying themselves, to me it was such a violent and traumatic death.”
This appeared to be shift of position for the party and, on its face, put its stance closer to that of the Government, which has explicitly condemned the attack and also directly criticised the ferocity of Israel’s response, which has already resulted in well over a thousand civilian deaths.
The Government has long supported the two-state solution and has consistently opposed what has, de facto, occurred over the past four or five decades, the gradual annexation of more and more Palestinian land by Israel, partly through new settlements. The current Israeli government led by Binyamin Netanyahu has been hostile to any negotiations or accommodation, and has supported large-scale illegal settlements on Palestinian land.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin said on Thursday that Israel could not make the entire population of Gaza “collateral damage” as it is doing now with its intense bombardment of this densely populated strip of land.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar went further on Thursday evening accusing Israel of engaging in “collective punishment”, while also stressing Israel had the right to defend itself against “brutal, savage” enemies, including Hamas and Hizbullah, “Islamic fundamentalists and anti-Semites”.
How much of a change is there in Sinn Féin’s stance? At the time of her interview, McDonald featured a Palestinian flag on her Twitter profile, sending out what many would regard as a mixed message. A Sinn Féin councillor Daithí Doolan used the slogan of militant republicanism “Tiocfaidh ár lá” when addressing a Palestinian solidarity rally in Dublin on Wednesday.
That said, the events of the past week might press Sinn Féin into re-evaluating its position on Hamas.
A frequent contact for Sinn Féin within Hamas is Dr Basem Naim, its head of international relations. In 2020 he was invited to speak at an online event hosted by Sinn Féin and opened by McDonald.
Promoting the event at the time, Ms McDonald added her name to an international petition organised by Palestinian groups against “the increasing extremism of the Israeli occupation forces and settler enterprise”.
During an interview on Sky TV following last Saturday’s attacks, Dr Naim refused to accept that any of those killed by Hamas last Saturday were civilians.
