America is not the only country conducting a national protest against Israel’s 40 year military occupation of the Palestinian people. The Irish are likewise weighing in on this anniversary with a national demonstration. Although the dispossession of Palestine by the Israelis began in 1948 with the Nakba in which 800,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homes, lands, villages, towns, and cities, this particular event focuses on the military occupation that began after the 1967 war. At that time, another 100,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from the West Bank and Gaza. But since that year, Israel has succeeded in establishing over 300 legal and illegal Israeli only villages, towns, and cities in the West Bank, interconnected with Israel by a network of Israeli only roads and highways, in what is essentially a colonization of the land. Even today, the confiscation of Palestinian lands continues through house demolitions, farmland and orchard devastation, and other means of inducing the emigration of Palestinians from their country.
National Demonstration against 40 years of the Israeli Occupation
Date(s): 9 Jun 2007
Time(s): 2:00 PM
Area: Dublin
Venue: Assemble at Central Bank, Dame Street, Dublin
This June marks the 40th anniversary of the Israeli invasion of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The subsequent occupation and brutal subjugation of the Palestinian people are in defiance of both UN resolutions and International Law. Israeli violations of the norms of civilised behaviour include
·ethnic cleansing,
·land theft,
·home demolition,
·collective punishment,
·prolonged detention without trial,
·use of Palestinians, including children, as human shields
·state-sponsored murder (euphemistically called “targeted assassination”)Israel pursues these policies with impunity because it is shielded by the UN Security Council veto of the United States and the moral cowardice of the European Union. It is up to us, the ordinary people, “the people on the street”, to force our governments to stop shielding Israel.
Join us to protest against the occupation and the failure of the Irish government to bring pressure to bear on Israel
For further information, email supportpalestine@ireland.com or phone 01-677-0253
http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/ipsc/displayEvent.php?eventID=338
Reprinted by permission of the Ireland Palestinian Solidarity Campaign.
