Israel/Gaza: Sinn Fein motion condemning attacks on civilian infrastructure and lives 'part of a shameless pattern'

The Sinn Fein-backed motion (sponsored by Mary Lou McDonald and others) invited TDs to state that the Dail at large “condemns and deplores the escalation of violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territory since October 7, particularly the killing of innocent men, women and children, the taking hostage and imprisonment of civilians, the targeting of civilian infrastructure and the mass forced displacement of civilians”.

The IRA killed in excess of 1,800 people during its campaign, injured an incalculably larger number, and caused unknown billions of pounds worth of damage to civilian infrastructure.

The campaign, coupled with loyalist terror, entailed the movement of large numbers of people as neighbourhoods were made religiously and politically uniform by force.

In 2020, Mrs McDonald was quoted in the Sunday Independent as saying of the IRA campaign: “I wish it hadn’t happened, but it was a justified campaign.”

She later went on to clarify: “I made the simple point that any person faced with that scenario might have become embroiled in it and might have volunteered with the IRA.

“It was justified to take on the British state… I’m not justifying every action at all and I absolutely understand the horror and pain that was visited on people.”

In 2022, Michelle O’Neill said of the IRA’s “violent resistance to British rule” that “I think at the time there was no alternative, but now thankfully we have an alternative”.

The Sinn Fein motion in the Dail also called on the Dublin government to “refer the situation in the State of Palestine to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court”, so it can investigate “any acts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide” in Gaza and the West Bank since October 7.

Mr Wilson told the News Letter: "It's a bit like the pot calling the kettle black for Sinn Fein to condemn those kinds of issues when [the IRA] actively engaged in them for 30 years in Northern Ireland…

"We don't expect Sinn Fein to be anything other than totally shameless in their hypocrisy on these issues."

He said the motion “can't be taken seriously by anybody but those who either are blind, or wish to close their eyes" to the past.

One thing that the Sinn Fein motion did not do was call for Israel’s ambassador to be expelled.

Sinn Fein had faced criticism from grassroots republicans after declining to back such a call as party policy.

Eventually, the leadership relented, and Mrs McDonald said last week that the ambassador’s position had become “untenable”.

Mr Wilson said he believes that Sinn Fein “still believe that,” but it was left out of the motion “for propaganda purposes” in order to ensure its success.

As of Monday, the UN (quoting Gaza’s health authority) was saying the death toll had reached over 11,000 – but noted that with over half of hospitals being out of action in Gaza, this body count had not been updated in three days.

About 41,000 homes have been destroyed, food reserves are “catastrophic”, and 70% have fled their homes. There’s been no electricity for 34 days.

Meanwhile 49 Israeli soldiers have been killed.