Practical ways to support Palestine
As Israel continues to commit genocide in Gaza, it’s hard not to feel powerless, even as peace march and campaign against the war and the increasing occupation of Palestine’s West Bank. But small daily actions, such as boycotting certain goods and companies can make an impression. CIARAN TIERNEY explains how this works.
For almost two years now, thousands of people across Galway have participated in rallies, protests, vigils, marches and cultural events in support of the people of Palestine.
Staff and students at the University of Galway, healthcare workers and ordinary people in places from Inis Oírr to Gort and An Spidéal to Kinvara meet up weekly to fly their flags and show their deep concern about the genocide being inflicted upon the people of Gaza.
Thousands have marched from the city’s Eyre Square to the Spanish Arch to call on the Irish Government and our local representatives to take more concrete action in the face of a ‘livestreamed’ genocide. They express horror that Ireland is complicit in an onslaught which has taken the lives of thousands of people in a tiny strip of land which is home to more than two million people.
Yet not everyone can march down Shop Street with a Palestinian flag on a Saturday or join the huge demonstrations which have taken place in Dublin almost every month since October 2023. More people are now asking how they can protest against Israel’s genocide in Gaza in their day-to-day lives.
The concept of boycotting an individual, business or country originated in the West of Ireland during the Land War of the 19th Century. A century later, the Dunnes Stores workers who went on strike for two years and nine months in the 1980s, when they refused to handle fruit from South Africa during apartheid, became inspirational figures in the global struggle against apartheid in Israel and Palestine.
From the US military’s use of Shannon Airport to Israel’s use of the Central Bank of Ireland to approve its war bonds until just a few weeks ago, and the University of Galway’s controversial partnership with Technion, the Israeli institute of technology, Israel has strong links with Ireland’s economy and society. Those links extend to the products we put in our shopping baskets every week.
But a growing number of people in Galway are exploring ways in which they can cut financial ties with Israel.
The unprecedented level of violence inflicted upon the people of Gaza – which is half the size of County Louth – since the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023, has resulted in a global campaign and growth in awareness of the injustice suffered by the people of Palestine since the ethnic cleansing of the 1940s.
More than 70% of the people in Gaza are from families who were forced out of what is now Israel in what Palestinians describe as the ‘Nakba’ (Arabic for Catastrophe) of 1948.
From Starbucks to Coca Cola products, or Sudocrem antiseptic cream to SodaStream (which operated in illegal settlements in the West Bank), it’s almost impossible to boycott all products related to the Israeli war effort.
And so, for Emmet O’Reilly, a prominent member of the Campus Coalition Against Genocide at the University of Galway, a basic action he could take in opposing the genocide was to download the ‘Boycat’ app on his phone.
The Palestinian issue has dominated Emmet’s life since he began studying at the university two years ago. He joined the Palestinian Solidarity Society in his first week in college and took part in delegations who met up with the then President of the University of Galway, Ciarán O hÓgartaigh, last year to call for an end to the university’s links with Israeli institutions.
Pictured: Some of the many people who took part in The West’s Awake Rally for Palestine in the city centre last Saturday. Photos: Joe O'Shaughnessy.