Belfast City Council votes to fly Palestinian flag after protracted legal battle, despite objections from Belfast Jewish Community
Belfast City Council tonight voted to fly the Palestinian flag after a protracted legal debate.
The council solicitor confirmed that a letter of objection had been received by the Belfast Jewish Community.
However supporters said that a letter in support of the move had also been submitted by Jews for Palestine.
Councillors heard therefore that flying the flag would have no disproportionate impact on any minority community and that a call-in could not be used against it.
Councillors voted last night 43-17 in favour of this position.
The Alliance Party proposed that instead of flying the Palestinian Flag, City Hall would be lit up in Palestinian colours – but after the Christmas market, in January.
The Alliance amendment was, however, voted down.
Instead, the original Sinn Fein motion was passed – that the Palestinian flag would be flown at City Hall in solidarity with the Palestinian people “on the next available day from midnight tonight”.
The Sinn Fein motion was passed by 32 votes to 28.
People Before Profit Councillor Michael Collins called for an end to taxpayers money being used to support arms manufacturers in Northern Ireland which are supplying Israel.
He also called for the removal of all American troops from Aldergrove airport.
However unionists objected that the vote represented "majoritarianism" and lamented that it went ahead with no equality impact assessment.
TUV councillor Ron McDowell contrasted the decision with the refusal to fly the Israeli flag in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which prompted the subsequent Hamas-Israel war in Gaza.
For three weeks Israel took no retaliatory action, he said, but the council refused to follow international opinion and fly the Israeli flag in support of Israel, preferring to take a more "neutral" approach.
He went on to give graphic details of the torture and rape of Israeli women before they were murdered on 7 October.
Sinn Fein had been pushing for the flag to fly from the top of city hall on Saturday, a day that saw supporters of the Palestinian cause march though the city centre. But the move was halted at the eleventh hour, the council confirming on Friday that lawyers had found procedural failures with the original vote.
The idea had been jointly called in by unionist parties opposed to it, raising the procedural problems. Lawyers rejected claims that flying the flag would be a discriminatory act against Jewish people, stating that no one from Belfast’s Jewish community had contacted them.