Gathering outside city hall in support of Palestine

Cork City Council is to write to the Government calling on them to enact legislation prohibiting the import of goods from Israeli settlements in Palestine, with one comment on the issue prompting outbursts from the gallery at yesterday’s council meeting.

Dozens of activists from the Cork Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Ballincollig for Palestine group gathered outside City Hall ahead of the meeting, waving Palestinian flags and holding signs asking passing motorists to honk in support of Palestine.

Sinn Féin councillor for Cork City North West, Kenneth Collins, tabled a motion at the meeting proposing the council call on Government to enact the Occupied Territories Bill.

Several of the activists who had protested prior to the meeting attended as observers.

Mr Collins’ motion proposed: “That Cork City Council, in light of the recent ruling by the International Court of Justice on the illegality of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories, calls on the Irish Government to enact the Occupied Territories Bill, to cut Irish trade ties with Israeli goods and services produced in these illegal settlements.”

The bill would make it an offence to import or sell goods or services originating in an occupied territory.

He said: 

“At the minute, the stance of the Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and Green Party Government is that they are seeking further legal advice on the Occupied Territories Bill. The [Israel Defence Forces] did not seek legal advice when they invaded Lebanon. The Israeli government did not seek legal advice when they gave orders that saw children burned alive.”

He called on the Government to “take a radical stand and send a clear message to Israel — the Irish people do not want your goods, we will not use our hard-earned money to build your profits from land you have stolen.”

There was widespread cross-party support for the motion. Councillors Brian McCarthy of Solidarity-People Before Profit, Ted Tynan of the Worker’s Party, Lord Mayor Dan Boyle as well as Oliver Moran and Honore Kamegni of the Green Party, Fine Gael’s Shane O’Callaghan, Sinn Féin’s Joe Lynch and Padraig Rice of the Social Democrats all speaking in support of the motion.

Terry Shannon of Fianna Fáil said of the motion: 

“We’ve called for a ceasefire… but we’ve got to do what is right and we’ve got to do it properly, just because Israel is doing things illegally, doesn’t mean we should do it illegally.”

The Attorney General is to brief the Government tomorrow on issues with legality, Mr Shannon said, suggesting that there could be no democracy in Palestine until Hamas is no longer operating, to calls of “shame” from the gallery.

While the Fianna Fáil councillors abstained from the motion, it was passed, prompting the activists to pull out a large flag and chant “Enact the Occupied Territories Bill".