Editor:
At the Irish Echo-supported HEAL Palestine fundraiser on Feb. 26, many longtime supporters of Irish freedom were there.
Of course, our community supports Palestine. Our histories overlap so closely. But as we’ve gained a foothold in New York politics, our values haven’t come with us.
Politicians to whom New York Irish activists, and the Irish Echo, are closely connected, are hedging on genocide.
There’s no room for hedging. Israel is bombing hospitals to get rid of evidence. Israel is torturing and killing doctors to keep "professional" testimony from reaching world bodies (ICC International Criminal Court, ICJ International Court of Justice, UN United Nations). Israel bans foreign journalists’ entry and kills journalists in Palestine (170 plus media workers killed) to prevent reporting. Israel is bombing schools and every university to erase knowledge and history. Israel and the United States are committing genocide and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
We as Irish Irish/Americans know well that framing starvation, scholasticide, genocide, and colonialism as a “civilizing mission” or “defense against terror” is how empires explain away their mass killings, theft of land, and efforts to erase us.
When we see the destruction in Hamad City, Gaza we know it as the Lough Sheelin eviction. When we see Israel preventing the burial of the dead, we remember Milltown Cemetery and Crossmaglen. Uprooting people, displacing them, starving them, creating famine, criminalizing their identity - we know this playbook. In this season and time, celebrating Irishness means standing with those resisting.
John Francis Mulligan, New York, NY
