To stand with Palestinians is to stand against racism and apartheid

Derek O’Flynn, press officer of the Israeli Embassy in Dublin (Letters, July 15) seemed a little confused as to the meaning of solidarity with Palestine, which of course goes back to the original ethnic cleansing, Al Nakba, carried out by what became the state of Israel, in 1948.

Indeed most of the population of Gaza is comprised of refugees from 1948 and 1967. Gaza Action Ireland as a solidarity group tries to highlight the injustices the Palestinian people, including but not confined to those in Gaza, have been subjected to by the Israeli state, since, yes, 1948. It is no “revelation” that Palestinians and solidarity activists date the injustice back to 1948.

Anyone with a passing interest in world affairs knows that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is far from “non-existent”.

It is incredible that anyone would attempt to deny what is reflected in international law and in the multiple United Nations resolutions against Israel.

Likewise, Gaza is both occupied and under siege by Israel, something that is unfortunately not contradictory. As we watched people there being bombed for 51 days last summer, with 2,251 of them killed, unable to leave, even for medical treatment, the cruelty of the siege was laid bare.

As Israel maintains effective control of the air, water and land borders of Gaza and the Palestinian Population Registry, it remains the occupying force with the population there held in what can only be described as an ‘open-air prison’.

The Palestinian struggle is against racism, colonialism and apartheid.

To infer, as O’Flynn does, that standing for justice for Palestine is anti-Semitism is not only defamatory, it is absolutely untrue.

Zoë Lawlor

Co-ordinator Gaza Action Ireland

South Circular Road

Limerick