Optimism in short supply at Gaza protest

Scores of people stood in solidarity with the people of Palestine at the monthly protest outside Cavan Courthouse on Saturday as the Gaza genocide rages on.

Labour representative Liam van der Spek was amongst those attending. “What’s been happening in Gaza is just constant bombardment, slaughter, starvation - there’s no way to characterise it other than genocide.

“And of course what Hamas did in 2023 was unacceptable, killing civilians, but the response to that can’t just be endless slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent people.”

He’s frustrated by the limited actions taken against Israel, suggesting, “It needs to be treated like apartheid South Africa,” he said.

Over pro-Palestinian chants from the crowd, Mr van der Spek said he would like to see Ireland “causing more of a fuss” and pushing for “bolder” action in the EU, and arguing for sanctions against all of Israel, rather than just the illegal settlements.

“As long as there are tens of thousands of people being killed, it’s never enough.”

The protest was held in light of numerous major powers recognising the state of Palestine, and trying to reboot the two-state solution at the United Nations. The controversial Trump-Netanyahu plan had yet to be announced.

Holding a poster of a mother holding a child, Marina Harton described the two state solution as “dead”.

“The 1967 borders are gone, so I don’t know what borders they are actually going to try to put in place. And it’s not contiguous and the West Bank and Palestinian portion is very shrunken, so I don’t know how they could even propose it at this stage,” she said.

Marina voiced her hope of the people of the Holy Lands living together, but not in an expressly Jewish state.

“It should be just a single state, hopefully called Palestine, and everybody who wants to live there in peace with each other can live there. I don’t believe in the two state solution anymore and I think it’s wrong to be pushing it. That notion is dead in my opinion.”

American Sue Whelan, who has lived in Cavan for 25 years, says she has no optimism for the Palestinians with Trump in the White House. The self declared Democrat longs to revert to the days of Bill Clinton’s Oslo Accord.

“That’s the piece I’d like to go back to,” says the Massachusetts native. “And yet the Americans continue to provide arms to Israel without question, and that’s the piece that’s very disappointing.”

Having lived and worked in sub-Saharan Africa with a range of organisations she’s acutely aware of the impact of “extreme difference between the haves and have-nots”. It pains her to see the conditions people in “Gaza and the West Bank” endure. “And it’s even worse there,” she concludes.

As the protest wound down, and the crowd drifted away, Cavan woman Eithne Brown approached a few people to voice her alternative view. She feels there should be more acknowledgement of “the genocide” of October 7 2023 “when Hamas invaded a sovereign state, ie Israel, and massacred and murdered and took hostages, some of whom are alive, some of who are dead and some of who are still being held and starved in the tunnels in Gaza”.

“I deeply mourn and I deeply regret the loss of any innocent human life, regardless of their race, creed or ethnicity,” said Eithne.

“I think it is very important that both sides are listened to and the Pro-Palestinian side is very much listened to in Ireland at the moment, and I have no issue with that, but what I do have serious issue is that the Israeli side is being silenced.”