A secret little mission to Galway

Irish Current Affairs Blog of the Year 2018

A little boy flies a Palestinian flag in Galway during a
protest last year. Photo: Skye McKee. 

In the West of Ireland, we don’t like to ask too many hard, tough questions or cause too much of a fuss.

We treat our visitors with respect, but a bizarre visit by a prominent diplomat last Friday has raised serious questions about who makes key decisions at a local level and why our elected representatives can be kept completely and utterly in the dark.

Who decides to invite an Ambassador to our city? And who decides that elected city councillors – the people who actually represent us – have no right to know when a diginitary is coming to our beautiful city?

On Wednesday, I was told by someone who works for Galway City Council that the Israeli Ambassador to Ireland, Ophir Kariv, was set to pay an official visit to the city on Friday.

The person who called me had no idea of the schedule involved, but he had heard that there would be engagements at NUI Galway, the Galway Chamber of Commerce, and City Hall.

I’m guessing he contacted me because he was aware of my keen interest in human rights and the fact that I have written extensively about the gross injustice inflicted on the people of Palestine. I sometimes freelance for Electronic Intifada, who are based in the US and work hard to give an English language voice to the oppressed.

So I made a few calls.

I informed members of the Galway Palestine Solidarity Campaign who, in turn, contacted members of the Labour Party and Sinn Fein who have done so much to raise awareness of the Palestinian issue at City Hall over the past few years.

They raised the flag in solidarity, they called on the Irish Government to recognise the state of Palestine, and no city official had seen fit to tell them about the proposed visit by the Israeli Ambassador on Friday.

Even the Mayor, apparently, wasn’t aware of the plans.

Flying the flag in Eyre Square 

A few pro-Palestine activists considered a peaceful and dignified flag protest at City Hall, but it was difficult to get people mobilised at such short notice, especially when nobody knew the exact time of the visit. I heard nothing more about it, but I’m aware that elected members of the City Council could not find out anything about the ambassador’s schedule. So much for local democracy!

On Saturday, a number of people sent me a podcast of a recording on local radio station Galway Bay FM, from the previous day.

As it turned out, Mr Kariv had visited the station’s headquarters on Sandy Road for a pre-arranged interview with current affairs presenter Keith Finnegan.

The people who sent me the podcast were shocked by the nature and tone of the interview.

It is normal practice for a new diplomat to visit provincial cities around the country, but activists in Galway were shocked that they managed to get through an entire interview without once uttering the words ‘Palestine’, ‘West Bank’, ‘Gaza’, ‘occupation’, ‘child prisoners’, or ‘house demolitions’.

On the day I was sent the podcast, an Arab family was expelled from their own home in East Jerusalem and suffered the indignity of seeing it handed over to ‘settlers’ who are deemed to be illegal according to international law.

But there was no mention of that in the fawning local radio interview.

And, yes, I took this local "whitewashing" of the representative of an Apartheid state personally. You can listen to the interview here. (The interview with the Israeli Ambassador begins at the 52 minute mark): https://galwaybayfm.ie/podcasts/feb14-2/

A Palestinian man holds the key to a house
his family can not return to

In July of last year, a friend and I got together with the members of rock band The Stunning to organise a late night gig in Galway which would raise funds to bring members of a children’s football academy in Gaza to the West of Ireland.

These amazing, hugely talented young boys captured the hearts of Galwegians over the previous two summers and represented Palestine with huge pride. They also met the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, at a Galway United game at Eamonn Deacy Park.

The night out at Massimo was a huge success. We raised €4,250 for the little Gaza boys. The figure surpassed all our expectations and the event fully sold out.

Two weeks later, heartbroken, I had to tell the people of Galway who attended the gig via social media that the boys had been forced to cancel their trip. The inhumane siege imposed on the people of Gaza by the governments of Egypt and Israel prevented them from travelling.

The Gaza football team during a visit to Kinvara, Co Galway, in 2016

Something Irish children take for granted, a trip away with a football team, was being denied to the little boys of Gaza. But there was no question about that catastrophic siege for Mr Ambassador.

The money for the young footballers has been left in a bank account for a year. We have no idea if they will be allowed out in 2019.

I thought of those poor little boys, and their broken dreams, when I listened to the podcast of the interview with Mr Kariv.

Not once was Mr Kariv challenged about his Government’s appalling history of human rights abuses and the appalling 52 year occupation of Palestine which has ruled out any prospects of a meaningful ‘peace process’ or ‘two state solution’.

There was no mention of the 600,000 settlers who are living on stolen land.

Perhaps Mr Kariv would like to have been asked about the Occupied Territories Bill, which is currently making its way through the Dail and Seanad, despite huge opposition from Israel, the United States, and the European Union.

Senator Frances Black’s bill has created headlines all across the world and could see Ireland lead the way in opposing an Apartheid State, in much the same way as the Dunnes Stores strikers (and subsequently the Irish Government) did in the 1980s when they stood up against the appalling injustice of Apartheid in South Africa.

Those Dunnes Stores strikers were subsequently thanked in person by President Nelson Mandela. Right now, it's hard to see a future leader of Palestine blazing a trail to Sandy Road.

On Friday, it would have been interesting to hear the Ambassador’s take on a bill which is being opposed so vehemently by the Israeli authorities and saw his Irish counterpart in Tel Aviv, Alison Kelly, being called in for a “dressing down” by the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

This is a huge current international news story, as Ireland’s bill is being watched closely by other countries including the Netherlands and Sweden, but it did not merit a mention during the Ambassador’s visit to Galway.

According to B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organisation, there were more than 200 Palestinian children in Israeli prisons at the end of 2018.

But there was no mention of those children on our local radio station.

The Gaza children met the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins,
during a visit to Galway United FC

No mention of Gaza, where two million people live under an intolerable siege in a tiny piece of land, which is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe. Most of them are descendants of refugees from what is now Israel, which might be of interest to listeners of the local radio station.

No mention of the billions in military aid which the USA provides Israel with every year.

To listen to the interview with Mr Kariv, it would be possible to believe that the people of Palestine did not actually exist.

That does a huge disservice to the people of the West Bank, who are living through a daily nightmare in which they are treated as second class citizens while living under a brutal military occupation in their own land.

And to the people of Gaza, who have so little hope when border crossings are closed down and talented little boys cannot even travel to Ireland for a week of football games.

It also does a huge disservice to the hundreds of thousands of Irish people who empathise with the people of Palestine. After all, we understand what it is like to be run out of our homes by “settlers” and forced to be refugees because of injustice in our own land.

They deserve to be told the full story, just as the people we elect to represent us should not be kept in the dark about a secretive visit by a diplomat which someone, somewhere, was afraid would become mired in controversy.

* Ciaran Tierney won the Irish Current Affairs and Politics Blog of the Year award at the Tramline, Dublin, in October 2018. Find him on Facebook  or Twitter here. Visit his website here - CiaranTierney.com.

He is available to blog for social media work or to blog for your business. Contact ciaran@ciarantierney.com

With Steve Wall of The Stunning during an amazing night out
in aid of the Gaza Kids to Ireland project last year.

The desperate cry of a people calling out for help

Young Gaza footballers in Galway in 2016. 

They feel as though the wider world has forgotten about them.

They live in what has been described as the world’s biggest open-air prison camp, 1.8 million of them crammed into a tiny strip of just 140 square miles, and they want the world to remember that they exist – and that they are finding it almost impossible to breathe.

For 11 years now, they have been blocked into an area which is smaller than County Louth by fences, bullets, and occasional bombs.

Travel is an impossible dream for most of them, a life-saving hospital visit can become a logistical nightmare, and even the fishermen risk being murdered if they dare to venture just a few miles offshore.

Gaza is a humanitarian catastrophe in the making and yet when the local people protest, as they have done in their thousands over the past three weeks, they are demonised, dehumanised, and gunned down.

Shot at by snipers located behind a fortified fence, murdered, or hospitalised, for daring just to protest, even if they are unarmed.

If it happened closer to home, there would be an international outrage. The perpetrators would be hauled before the International Criminal Court for shooting unarmed protesters but, in Gaza, life just goes on.

Irish people can relate to the slaughter surrounding the Great Return March because the shooting of protesters at the border fence has been described as Gaza’s ‘Bloody Sunday’, the terrible day in Derry when the murder of 14 people by occupying soldiers traumatised a city and prolonged a terrible conflict for decades.

The Great Return March is a desperate plea by a desperate people to be heard, it’s also a courageous declaration that refugees who were run out of their homes and villages have a right to freedom, a right to return, and to forge out some sort of a life for themselves.

The vast majority of those crammed in behind the fence in Gaza are refugees from what is now the south of Israel. Some of them even have the keys of the houses their family members fled in terror seven decades ago.

An old Palestinian man holds the keys to
his former family home in what is now Israel

The Gaza Strip was designated as a place to imprison them after they were forced to flee their homes. Israeli soldiers and ‘settlers’ may have withdrawn from the tiny enclave 11 years ago, but every movement in and out of the strip by land, air, or sea is controlled by Egypt and Israel.

If you need life-changing treatment in Israel, you face harassment and humiliation at the Erez crossing, if you are even allowed through at all. You might have family members just a few miles away in Jerusalem or the West Bank, but visiting them has become an impossible dream.

And yet the tendency among many members of the Western media is to demonise and dehumanise these people who are crying out for some sort of a shot at having normal lives.

When unarmed protesters are shot by armed snipers, and hundreds end up in hospitals, the shootings are described as “clashes” as though they were some sort of exchange between equals.

In the first three weeks of the Great Return March, 34 people were killed and at least 1,500 were injured, rushed to hospitals which are already struggling to cope in the face of the 11 year siege.

In Gaza, life is anything but normal.                                        

When the talented young footballers from a soccer academy in Gaza came to Ireland in 2016, the complications surrounding the trip brought home to Irish people just how horrible life is for ordinary Palestinians on the strip.

The trip was delayed by three weeks, forcing a raft of cancellations of flights, accommodations, and games. The Israeli authorities decided at the last minute that the boys and their mentors from the Al-Helal academy were not allowed out of Gaza.

Irish activists, who had been planning the trip for three years, were crushed. A lot of organisation had gone into sourcing host families, clubs to play ‘friendly’ matches, and a schedule which would allow them to make the most of their ten days in Ireland.

Then, suddenly, almost three weeks after the trip was called off, the Israeli authorities allowed 14 of the 15 boys on the squad to travel, along with two of the seven adults who were supposed to accompany them to Ireland.

The only talented young footballer who was refused permission to travel, Karam Zaidan, was badly injured when Israel bombed Gaza in 2009.

The only reason anyone could come up with for his omission from the squad was concern among the Israeli authorities that his visible facial injuries would upset Irish people or cause them to ask too many questions.

Only two of the seven adults who were supposed to travel were allowed through the militarized Erez checkpoint which blocks Palestinians in Gaza off from the international airport at Tel Aviv and any connection with the outside world.

The two adults who did travel with the boys were visibly stressed by the trials and tribulations of having to look after the youngsters whose lives have been scarred by bombing attacks and the deprivation caused by the relentless 11 year siege.

No explanation was given when exit permits were denied to five of the coaches and child psychologists from the academy, which attracts the best young footballers from throughout Gaza.

And yet the boys represented Gaza, and Palestine, with so much pride. They won all six games on their Irish tour, outplaying Irish boys of the same age who were in some cases twice their size.

The Al-Helal boys represented Palestine with such pride
Photo courtesy of John Kelly, Co Clare

Footballers in Gaza are subjected to controls and restrictions which would be unthinkable to their counterparts in any country in Europe.

They are regularly harassed at checkpoints, prevented from travelling, and forced to cancel games. The Al-Helal ground in northern Gaza, where the boys play their home games, was bombed by Israel in 2012 and again in 2014.

And yet the children from Gaza have delighted Irish people when they were allowed to visit Ireland over the past two summers.

Those of us who met the boys were struck by how serious and proud they were about representing Palestine, how courteous they were to their hosts, and how keen they were to present a positive image to the world.

The children appreciated the trips all the more because they were acutely aware of how rare it is for a team from Gaza to represent the enclave in any part of the world.

Children in Gaza are among the most traumatised in the world. Many of the Al-Helal boys were emotionally scarred by the 2014 Israeli military assault on the Gaza Strip, in which more than 2,250 Palestinians, including 551 children, were killed.

Although the world has quickly moved on from that atrocity, most of us can remember the image of the four little boys playing on a beach – aged nine to 11 – who were killed by an Israeli missile that year.

Innocence and all hope for the future are lost when the simple act of playing hide ‘n’ seek on a beach is punishable by death.

And yet, repeatedly, we hear that the people of Gaza deserve their terrible fate, that they must be punished for voting for the appalling ‘terrorists’ of Hamas.

Two days after 30 unarmed people, including a journalist, were shot dead by his troops the Israeli Defence Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said there were “no innocent people” in the entire Gaza strip.

“There are no innocent people in the Gaza Strip,” Lieberman told Israel’s public radio. “Everyone’s connected to Hamas, everyone gets a salary from Hamas, and all the activists trying to challenge us and breach the border are Hamas military wing activists.”

Presumably, his comments include even the little 10 to 14 year old boys – much smaller and yet more skilful than their Irish counterparts – who captured the hearts and minds of Irish people with their skills, dignity, and innocence over the past two summers.

So when Dublin City Council votes to support the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, to pressurise Israel to end the occupation and obey international law, the councillors are not being racist or prejudiced.

They are supporting a people who are living under a horrible occupation.

When Galway City Council votes to call on the Irish Government to recognise the state of Palestine, they are not neglecting their duties to the people of their own city. Rather, they are trying to give a tiny glimmer of hope to desperate people living under occupation who are inspired by Ireland’s own struggle for self-determination.

The people of Gaza only want to remind us that they exist and, like everyone else, they are entitled to some sort of a decent life.

·         The gifted young footballers from the Al-Helal Football Academy are due to return to Ireland from July 28 to August. To find out more, to raise funds or awareness for the trip, or to help out in any way you can find details at http://gazaactionireland.weebly.com/gaza-kids-to-ireland-2017.html

Thanks to Sean Ryan, John Kelly (Clare), and Andrew Downes (Xposure.ie) for the photos. 

Ciaran Tierney is a journalist, blogger, and digital storyteller based in Galway, Ireland. Find him on Facebook at http;//facebook.com/ciarantierneymedia/

Marching in solidarity with the people of Gaza
on the streets of Galway. Photo by Ciaran Tierney.

A bluffer's guide to an eventful 2017

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For many people I know, 2016 was a horrible year.

Too many faced job insecurities or even job losses, relationship breakdowns, and financial worries about the future. Many felt they were only a pay cheque away from homelessness, with rents increasing and the prospect of buying a home in Ireland becoming ever more remote for an entire generation.

The crisis in our health service left far too many vulnerable people lying on trollies and all across the globe thousands of people lost their lives in appalling wars.              

The Donald: set to make a big impact in 2017

We saw many of our musical heroes pass away, while the Brexit and Trump votes seemed to suggest that hatred and fear had overcome love and understanding on both sides of the Atlantic.

People began to wake up to the appalling reality of climate change, only to realize that a man who completely denies the reality of pending environmental catastrophe had become the most powerful politician on the planet late in the year.

But the start of January is a time for renewal and change, and perhaps looking forward to a brighter future.

When I used to work in the newspaper business, I often wrote my predictions for the New Year.

So, for what it’s worth, here’s my tongue-in-cheek assessment of what 2017 has in store.

JANUARY
The Irish Times publishes a piece called ‘Why fascism is trendy again’ on the eve of the inauguration of US President Donald Trump in Washington DC. The event itself proves to be something of a damp squid, as Mexicans, Muslims, women, gays, gun-owners and liberals are banned from the ceremony. The only two foreign leaders to attend are from Holland and Northern Ireland, after Trump insists it’s an “orange only” event.

An Taoiseach Enda Kenny: our own wonderful leader

FEBRUARY
With an unprecedented number of patients on trolleys in Ireland’s public hospitals, An Taoiseach Enda Kenny is accused of gross hypocrisy when he takes a private jet to the United States for emergency heart surgery.

However, the emergency is quickly forgotten as a team of surgeons at a highly rated private clinic in New York fail to find his vital organ. Following his release from hospital, an emotional Mr Kenny calls on President Trump to give an amnesty to the “undocumented” Irish in the US who were unable to go home for Christmas.

MARCH
After returning to Ireland, Mr Kenny calls for an immediate clampdown on “illegal” immigration to Ireland. “This might be the best little country in the world to do business in, but our small island hasn’t got room for all these niggers,” he tells a Fine Gael function in his native Castlebar. After a reporter from the Mayo Gazette secretly records his speech, he accuses the media of lacking a sense of humour and promises to sell the Gazette to his close friend, Denis O’Brien.

Trump, meanwhile, pledges $100 billion in military aid to Israel, on his first overseas trip since taking office. “It’s simply inhumane to expect Israelis to live on just 78% of Palestinian land,” he says. “I’m very strong on Israel. I’m so strong on Israel, in fact, that I’m gonna kick the UN out of New York for daring to question their policies. I’m gonna make Israel great again.”

APRIL
Niamh Horan of the Sunday Independent courts controversy by organising a five page “Fascism is Fashionable” feature, with photo shoots of columnists Ian O’Doherty and Brendan O’Connor dressed up in Ku Klux Klan costumes. Controversy rages over the lack of security at Dublin Airport when UK columnist Katie Hopkins disguises herself as a cockroach when flying in for the feature.

Amazingly, security and customs personnel failed to notice any difference and waved Ms Hopkins through without even looking at her passport.

Is this Katie or a cockroach? Who knows?

MAY
Shannon Airport is in the news this month when management celebrate the arrival of the 5 millionth US soldier at the ‘neutral’ facility. A proposed party to welcome the soldier, on his way home from Iraq, has to be cancelled when white phosphorous is released from his plane, causing the deaths of 48 Ryanair passengers on their way to London.

Thankfully, no US soldiers were injured in the accident. And Michael O’Leary was presented with an Irish business innovation award when he managed to have his plane back in the air within four hours of the incident.

JUNE
Billionaire tycoon Denis O’Brien commissions a report which finds that Rupert Murdoch of News International has too much influence on the Irish media. By complete coincidence, Murdoch’s Sunday Times commissions a report which finds that O’Brien has too much influence on the Irish media.

O’Brien buys up every remaining regional newspaper in Ireland, while Murdoch purchases all of the country’s “independent” radio stations. New Minister for Communications Michael Lowry expresses complete satisfaction with both deals.

JULY
The five million Native Americans in the US are baffled when President Trump warns them that they will be deported “along with all the Mexicans and Muslims”. A new “Orange Lives Matter” movement is born in the USA to counteract vicious lies about police brutality and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba begins to fill up with environmental scientists after the phrase “climate change” is banned by the US Congress.

AUGUST
Tax exile Bono becomes Freeman of the City after spending three nights “sleeping out” on Grafton Street in Dublin to raise awareness of homelessness. However, he calls the Gardai when a real live homeless person turns up at his occasional Dalkey home. Later in the month, he’s presented with an award for services to humanity by UN Secretary General Ivanka Trump.

“Every day, the poor people of Africa must thank their lucky stars that they have a brilliant, billionaire Irish singer to speak out on their behalf,” she said at the award ceremony at Trump Tower Two, the new name for the UN HQ in New York. Back home, Ireland becomes the first country in Europe to successfully sue the EU in order to make sure that it did not get money owed to it.

Taoiseach Kenny says he’s delighted he won’t have to take €17 billion in taxes owed by Apple Inc, as it would do “enormous damage” to Ireland’s reputation as a great little country to do business in.

SEPTEMBER
Fears that RTE would have to go into liquidation due to financial difficulties are allayed when TV presenter Ryan Tubridy agrees to take a five per cent pay cut. Mayo win the All-Ireland football final (sorry …. That bit is made up!), no, actually, Dublin and Kilkenny win the football and hurling respectively. Hurling fans all over the country come together to hire Dublin drugs gang the Keenihans to ‘take out’ Kilkenny boss Brian Cody.

RTE are faced by a flood of complaints when crime journalist Paul Williams appears on the ‘Late Late Show’ for the 50th time, but lets his fans down badly by failing to utter the word “scumbag” once during his 45 minute appearance with Ryan Tubridy.

OCTOBER
Gardai issue an apology after a banker is arrested for drunk driving. An Taoiseach Enda Kenny summons the Garda Commissioner to his office to remind her that no banker is to be arrested for any offence, ever. The Government announces that Irish Water is to be revived and advertises for a new CEO, to be paid €400,000 per year. A demonstration against Irish Water attracts 30,000 people to the streets of the capital, but organisers claim that 100,000 took part and Gardai deny that it even happened.

Promises, promises ... but sure they're only promises!

NOVEMBER
The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netyanahu, is awarded the highly prestigious Tipperary Peace Prize. Human rights organisations condemn the prize, pointing out that Israeli soldiers have killed 1,500 people so far in 2017. A spokesman for the committee, Alan Kelly, says that this is a big decrease on the 2016 figure.

“And, anyway, sure, he’ll bring a crowd and he’ll give us a bit of publicity,” say Kelly.

Russian jets bomb 85 civilians to death in Syria on the same day as US fighters murder 85 civilians in Iraq. RT provide excellent coverage of the Iraqi deaths, but say those in Syria never happened. Fox News, now allowed 24/7 access to the White House for a new series called ‘The Don Knows Best’, accuse RT of “fake news” and call for the Russian TV channel to be banned from America.

“Unlike all the others, Fox gets it,” says Trump.

DECEMBER
A visit by US President Donald Trump to China turns controversial when the Chinese hosts fail to place a giant mirror in his Shanghai hotel bedroom. Enraged, Trump returns to Washington DC, where he presses the red button to blow the Chinese … and the rest of us … to Armageddon.

So ... that's the coming year for you.

It’s going to be a lot more eventful than 2016.

Happy New Year!


http://ciarantierney.com/

From the archives: An Uncomfortable Truth for Culture Night

Flying the flag for Palestine

When a group of talented young soccer players from Gaza enjoyed a couple of dream evenings in Galway earlier this month, they made sure to record every important moment on their smartphones.

The young boys, aged between ten and 14, were delighted to be guests of honour at Galway United’s big game against the Irish champions, Dundalk FC, and they were determined to video the highlights for an absent friend.

The League of Ireland is hardly the most glamorous competition in Europe but, with 2,600 passionate fans in the ground, it was the biggest game any of them had attended in their short young lives.

When they performed a guard of honour to welcome the two teams onto the pitch at Eamon Deacy Park for the big televised game, the phones were produced.                        

The Al-Helal boys in Galway.
Photo: Sean Ryan. 

When half of the main stand stood up to sing for Palestine, they filmed the hospitable crowd with tears in their eyes.

When they were beckoned into a room under the main stand after the game, to meet no less a figure than the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, they were quick to produce the phones.

They were absolutely thrilled. They filmed for their mothers, their fathers, their siblings and their friends back in Gaza, but they had one young boy in their hearts and mentioned him every day.

When they were entertained by a community circus in Kinvara, a village which boycotted Israeli goods during the bombardment of Gaza in 2014, they kept filming.

They put the cameras away before hammering the locals from Kinvara United, displaying amazing skills, but took them out again after the game.

“This one’s for Karam,” they kept telling each other.

One of the organisers of the trip, Zoe Lawlor, eventually told me that they were sending daily messages to a team-mate, Karam Zaidan, who had been refused permission to travel.

It took Gaza Action Ireland and the Al-Helal Football academy three years to plan the boys’ Irish tour, in which they won all their games against boys of the same age in Dublin, Galway, Wexford, and Tipperary.

The trip had been cancelled when the youngsters were refused exit permits by the Israeli authorities, despite having the necessary visas, travel documents, and funds to make it to Ireland.

Three weeks after the ten day tour was called off, the Israelis eventually allowed 14 of the 15 boys to travel at short notice, along with two of the seven adults who were meant to accompany them to Ireland.

From Gaza to Kinvara.
Photo: John Kelly.

The boys were in tears when the much-anticipated trip was called off and there were more tears when they learned that Karam would have to stay behind.

As a small child, Karam suffered horrific injuries during the Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip in 2009. He has recovered to become one of the best soccer players in the tiny strip of land which is home to 1.8 million people, but he’s disfigured for life.

He plays for an academy which takes in the best players from throughout the tiny enclave and his team’s ground in Northern Gaza has been bombed twice by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) in recent years.

The only reason the trip organisers could think of for Karam to be refused permission to travel – while all his team-mates made it to Ireland – was that the Israeli authorities did not want Irish people to see the extent of his injuries.

Many of the boys at the Al-Helal academy were traumatised by the 2014 bombardment of the Gaza Strip, in which an estimated 2,250 people – including more than 551 children – lost their lives.

The boys have survived two major bombardments in their short lives and a female child psychologist was also left behind. It meant there was huge pressure on Ayed and Mohammed, the two adults who accompanied them to Ireland.

Life is not “normal” if you are a soccer player in Gaza and things which others take for granted, such as hopping onto a bus to play an away game, can be virtually impossible for those who live on the coastal strip.

Just last month, the Palestinian Cup Final was cancelled after the Israeli authorities barred a number of players from Gaza from entering the West Bank to play the second leg.

There are only three exits from Gaza, which has been described as the world’s largest prison. One is almost permanently closed by Egypt and another is only for freight.

In late July, the Shabab Khan Younis team attempted to travel to the West Bank via the Israeli-controlled Erez checkpoint, which is the only way out.

The Israeli authorities held the team for 12 hours before barring six players from entering Israeli territory.

As the team was left with only ten players for the game the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) said it had no option but to call off the final.                                    

Celtic "ultras" flying the flags at Parkhead.

“This behaviour is embarrassing. The players arrived at the checkpoint and were forced to wait 12 hours and to undergo interrogations and checks that have no relationship to security,” said PFA chairman Jibril Rajoub. 

“I heard they were asked about their neighbours and about all kinds of things in Gaza that have no connection to security. The sole purpose was to wear them down for hours upon hours in the burning heat, and in the end to allow only part of the team to pass the checkpoint and reach Hebron.”

He said he didn’t think there was anywhere else in the world where soccer players were treated in this manner.

But these kinds of obstacles are second nature to Palestinian footballers.

In November 2006, October 2007, and May 2008 games involving the Palestinian national team were called off because the players were refused permission to travel to fulfill their fixtures.

A striker for the national team, Ziyad Al-Kord, had his house destroyed by the IDF. Three members of the team (Ayman Alkurd, Shadi Sbakhe, and Wajeh Mostahe) were among those killed during the same three week bombardment in 2009-9 in which young Karam sustained his injuries.

Two West Bank villages which featured in a promotional video by FIFA, world football’s governing body, only last month are now making headlines for all the wrong reasons. FIFA claimed that football was helping to bring the Palestinian nation together.

Since the video was released a month ago, houses in the villages in the South Hebron Hills have been demolished in order to make way for Israeli ‘settlements’ which are illegal according to international law.

I thought about Karam, the cancelled Cup Final, the dead players, and the demolished houses this week, when UEFA (European football’s governing body) threatened to impose a fine on Glasgow Celtic FC after last week’s Champions League game against a team from Israel, Hapoel Be'er Sheva.

UEFA has described the Palestinian national flag as an “illicit banner” after hundreds of Celtic fans flew them at Parkhead. Even though Palestine is now a member of the global football “family” and competes in international games. .

Celtic, founded in 1888, was the club set up by and for Irish immigrants who experienced discrimination and sectarianism when they emigrated to Scotland.

Like the Palestinians, the Irish have some knowledge of occupation and colonization. The people who left places like Donegal and Tyrone to begin new lives in Glasgow had a keener understanding than most of what it’s like to live under occupation.

“The situation in Palestine is a classic example of land that is being taken from people who lived there for generations. It chimes in with the course of Irish history,” Scottish historian Tom Devine told Al-Jazeera.

Thankfully, fans of Celtic FC have already turned the UEFA fine into a good news story, by pledging to match the fine by raising funds for a youth soccer team in the West Bank and Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Money has been flooding in for the campaign, with more than £100,000 raised for Palestinian charities within just a few days.

“Celtic is all about standing up for the rights of those who don’t have a voice and therefore I’m now delighted by a UEFA fine that’s only helped draw more attention to the human tragedy and showing how solidarity can force change,” said Celtic fan Will Gardner.

In the 1980s, a boycott of South Africa - including a ban on tours by sporting teams - helped to isolate the Apartheid regime. People now believe it is time to impose similar sanctions on Israel, until Palestinians are given some sort of hope for a peaceful, just future.

At the moment, there is no hope for the people of Gaza.

In an ideal world, there would be no place for “political” flags at a football ground.

But this is not an ideal world and UEFA’s fine smacks of hypocrisy in the face of European football’s refusal to address the issue of why Palestinian soccer players are treated so appallingly by the Israeli authorities.

Until a youngster like Karam has the right to undertake the kind of team tour which is taken for granted by gifted soccer players all across Europe, football fans should have a right to fly the flag in solidarity with the oppressed people of Palestine.

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If you dare to criticise Israel, you must be "anti-Semitic"

Last week, a blog post I wrote following a talk by a Holocaust survivor was described as “hate-mongering”.

In the piece, I dared to suggest that it was deeply saddening that the descendants of the people who suffered so much in 1930s and 1940s Europe had become oppressors themselves.

I wrote that some Israelis and Palestinians had “dehumanised” the other side in ways which were eerily similar to what went on in Germany back in the 1940s.

There is no doubt that the whole of Europe should have collective shame over the extermination of six million Jewish people by the Nazis during World War Two.

Jewish children in a Nazi concentration camp.
The world should never forget the horror of the Holocaust.

That shame extends to Ireland, where our Government – just a few years after independence – did next to nothing to help those who were trying to escape from persecution.

It was natural and understandable that revulsion over the Holocaust led to widespread public support across the globe for the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948.

The only problem was that nobody seemed to take the needs or rights of the native Palestinians on board when Israel came into being.

And so began a myth that here was a “land without a people for a people without a land”, as those who had earlier been colonised by Britain either did not exist or had no right to their own self-determination.

The relatively minor abuse last week got me to ponder how far Israel has shifted to the right since the days when enthusiastic young Europeans used to travel there to volunteer and live in cooperatives known as kibbutzim. Not any more.

My Twitter feed soon filled up with abusive attacks.

I am no expert on the Middle East, but I have been to that part of the world on about 15 occasions and love the hospitality and culture of the people.

I am no expert on Israel and Palestine, but I do recognise a gross injustice when people are colonised, forcibly ejected from their homes, or forced to live as second class citizens.

As an Irish person, whose land has a long history of oppression and colonisation; it’s natural to feel a tendency to side with the oppressed.

The abuse I received came just a month after the British Labour Party was torn apart by accusations of “anti-Semitism”.

Former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, of all people, was given this label after he made some ill-advised comments about Hitler and Zionism.

Nowadays, it seems, it is impossible to criticise Israel in any way without being smeared.

Palestinian loss of land since 1946

The on-line abuse got me to thinking …

If you think that villagers have a right to return to the land and homes they were forced to flee by colonising settlers in 1948 or 1967, you must be anti-Semitic.

If you find it appalling that more than 550 children were murdered in one of the most crowded places on earth in just a few weeks in 2014, you must be anti-Semitic. (After all, their parents voted for murderous Hamas terrorists).

If you cannot, in your wildest imagination, see any justification in the bomb which killed four young boys on a Gaza beach, you must be anti-Semitic.

If you think it’s a war crime to bomb a hospital, you must be anti-Semitic. (Don’t you know that the patients inside were being used as human shields by dangerous terrorists?)

If you oppose a wall which cuts through farms and villages on occupied land, you must be anti-Semitic.

If you think it’s racist or even a form of Apartheid when roads are reserved for one particular race or religious group, at the expense of another, you must be anti-Semitic.

If you think ‘peace’ is impossible now that 800,000 settlers have built houses on occupied land in the West Bank, you must be anti-Semitic. (Even the UN, hardly great supporters of Palestinian rights over the years, recognise the 1967 border as ‘legal’).

If you think it’s hypocritical to talk ‘peace’ while stealing land which is outside your country’s borders, in contravention of the Geneva conventions, you must be anti-Semitic.

If you oppose institutional discrimination because you think it’s just as bad as the South African regime in the 1980s was, you must be anti-Semitic.

If you question why the US gives $3 billion a year in military aid to one of the richest armies on earth, who then try out new arms in heavily populated areas, you must be anti-Semitic. (Israeli arms dealers actually boast that new weapons are “tried and tested” in Occupied Palestine).

If you understand why people who have been cut off by land, air, and sea by colonisers might want to smuggle essential goods through tunnels, you must be anti-Semitic.

If you think it’s not ok to murder 2,200 people, because some of them may have voted for appalling terrorists, you must be anti-Semitic.

If you feel the people of Gaza should be allowed lift the siege in order to rebuild their homes, you must be anti-Semitic. (They cannot even get concrete in, for God’s sake).

If you call for a boycott of companies who locate their factories on stolen land in the West Bank, you must be anti-Semitic. (They do employ Palestinians, but at a fraction of the cost of hiring Israelis inside the recognised 1967 borders).

If you see no hope for children who are tear gassed on their way to school in Hebron, you must be anti-Semitic.

If you think the villagers of Bili’in have a right to protest after the huge wall cut them off from their own olive fields, you must be anti-Semitic. (Almost every Friday for years now, they have been fired upon by occupying soldiers).

If you don’t think it’s right to appoint a racist (with widely-reported anti-Arab views) as Minister for Defence, you must be anti-Semitic.

If you think it’s hateful for a Prime Minister to spread fear about a minority’s voting habits on the eve of an election, in any country, you must be anti-Semitic.

If you think groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace are heroes for exposing and denouncing atrocities committed in their name, you must be anti-Semitic.

If you laud the bravery of the ex-soldiers in Breaking the Silence who fear the toll this cruel occupation is taking on both sides, you must be anti-Semitic.

If you pay attention to the human rights abuses exposed by Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem, you must be anti-Semitic.

(Even though all three of these organisations are predominantly made up of Jewish members.)

It doesn't matter if you agree that Holocaust-denial is a crime. It is simply ludicrous to deny that six million Jewish people were murdered by the Nazis, in what was the darkest period in the entire history of humanity.

It doesn’t matter if you think Hamas are murderous thugs or that the Palestinian Authority are guilty of corruption.

It doesn’t matter if you think public executions, which are sometimes authorised by Hamas and seen on the streets of Gaza, are crimes against humanity.

It doesn’t matter if you recognise that “radical Islam” is a scourge which threatens the entire world.

It doesn’t matter if you think ‘Sharia Law’ is an abomination and that women deserve equal rights in every country on earth.

It doesn’t matter if you completely oppose the firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel, rockets which have killed innocent civilians.

It doesn’t matter if you think that ‘suicide bombers’ are deplorable and that attacks on Israeli civilians are terrible.

A graphic which examines the similarities between South Africa
under Apartheid and modern-day Israel. 

It doesn’t matter if you think all human life is sacred, that the shooting of four innocent people sitting at a cafe in Tel Aviv last week is as much of a tragedy as the killing of the young boys playing on the beach in Gaza in 2014.

Yes, all human life, without distinguishing between Muslims, Christians, Jews, and non-believers.

It doesn’t matter if you think Egypt, by closing the Rafah border, is just as complicit as Israel in the terrible siege of Gaza.

It also doesn’t matter if you recognise that the Governments of Egypt, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Libya, etc, are controlled by tyrants and that Israel does have a right to defend itself.

Because, if you dare to criticise Israel in any way, you run the risk of being labelled as “anti-Semitic” or a “hate-mongerer”. Even if you know, deep in your heart, that there will never be peace in the Middle East, not while one side chokes the life out of the other and brutalises a whole new generation of hopeless children.

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After CRH, it's now time to look at G4S

In this globalised world, we are all interconnected.

When NUI Galway students voted to become the first in Ireland to adopt boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) of Israel as official Students’ Union policy, the international campaign against them was incredible.

For weeks leading up to the vote, posters popped up all over campus encouraging the students not to adopt the boycott as official SU policy.

One memorable poster told the students they should boycott Facebook if they intended to boycott Israel, because the founder of the social media site, Mark Zuckerberg, happens to be Jewish. 

The implication was that a boycott of Israel was an action against all Jews, rather than a response to the colonisation and occupation of Palestine, plus the illegal ‘settlements’ which have ruled out any possibility of a ‘two state’ solution.

The implication was crystal clear. Those who had any concerns about Israeli policies were branded as “anti-Semitic” and the Israeli Embassy in Dublin waged a propaganda campaign against the SU.

Despite the scare tactics, an overwhelming majority of students voted to adopt BDS as official SU policy in 2014.

The vote generated headlines across the world. It has prompted other third level institutions across Ireland, including the Galway Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT), to adopt the same policy in response to the illegal occupation.

Galway protester Tommy Donnellan in the West Bank

I reported on the outcome of the vote for the local ‘paper, The Sentinel, and was then subjected to a barrage of abuse from throughout the globe. It had been quite a nasty campaign relating to an emotive issue, with abuse coming from both sides.

As they celebrated the election victory, the students vowed to remove global security giant G4S from the Galway campus.

G4S have been providing equipment and services to Israeli prisons, in which political prisoners including children are held without trial and subjected to torture, for years.

Every night after dark, security men from G4S patrol the NUI Galway campus. It didn't take the students long to realise that there was a connection between the vans driving around the University grounds and the people who are helping to run Israeli state prisons which are full of political prisoners from Palestine.

The day after the vote, a G4S van was parked outside my office. The company has a presence in 120 countries and I suddenly began to notice G4S vans all around Galway city centre, outside banks and other businesses.

Most people in Galway, and other Irish cities and towns, probably have no awareness of the vast reach of this security giant.

By helping the Israeli State to run five prisons and “interrogation centres”, G4S helps Israel to use torture and mass incarceration of more than 6,000 Palestinians. The British-Danish company promotes and prolongs an occupation which is illegal under international law.

Day by day, this firm facilitates racist policies against people who have been living under occupation since 1967.

G4S provide services and equipment to the checkpoints which see Palestinians being subjected to daily humiliations at the ‘Apartheid Wall’, which has cut many West Bank villagers off from their own land. 

This week, a prominent Irish firm, CRH, divested from Israel after coming under sustained pressure from activists opposed to the occupation of Palestine.

For over a decade, the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) had urged CRH to cease operating in Israel. CRH held 25 per cent of the shares in Mashav, the owner of the top cement manufacturer in Israel.

It is believed that cement owned by the firm was used to build the ‘Apartheid Wall', which was deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice over a decade ago.

Cement owned by the firm has been used to build illegal Israeli settlements on occupied West Bank land, further reducing any hopes of a long-term peaceful solution to the conflict in the Middle East.

Over the years, CRH had learned that it doesn’t pay to do business with the Apartheid State. According to the IPSC, CRH's divestment is better late than never.

Two years ago, when I reported that the NUI Galway students wanted G4S to be removed from campus as a response to the company’s activities in Israel and Palestine, I received a torrent of abuse.

Protesting against G4S human rights abuses

People said that G4S staff in Galway were “only doing their jobs”. They said it was unfair to call for a boycott of the company in Galway.

But, like CRH, they can’t have it both ways. They can’t drive around a university campus in Ireland at night while facilitating human rights abuses in Israel.

If a company with a significant presence in Ireland is facilitating the imprisonment of children without trial, people have a right to know.

It’s time to look at G4S.

If they continue to trample on the human rights of children and teenagers across Palestine, Galway students have a right to insist that the University authorities remove them from their campus.

There are plenty of other security firms around with a far less murky record when it comes to human rights.

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