Ireland boasts of being the first country in the European Union to call for the creation of a Palestinian state, and the last to accept the opening of an Israeli embassy in its capital. Wearing a kufia (the traditional Palestinian headscarf) is considered a sign of distinction, and those who wear it are greeted, applauded or even hugged on the streets of Dublin. Cars honk in his honor. “Free, free”, shout some. “Palestine”, answer the others.
What unites both peoples is the colonial experience. Ireland only became independent from Great Britain in 1921, and Palestine came under British mandate after the First World War and the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The Irish identify with the Palestinians because their territory (the six counties of Ulster) was taken from them, because they suffered under the imperial yoke, because London did nothing to fight a famine that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, and by the excessive violence of the occupying army.
Many of the colonial officials who served in Ireland until independence were later sent to Palestine, and former Prime Minister Arthur Balfour (author of the declaration that bears his name and under which London spoke in favor of of the creation of a home for the Jews in what was then a territory he administered) had been at the end of the 19th century the head of Irish Affairs in the, firmly opposing autonomy and giving the green light to the Mitchelstown massacre, a bloody episode of colonial occupation.
Pro-Palestinian sentiment is universal in Ireland and shared by all political parties. “Israel has the right to defend itself, but what it is doing does not appear to be self-defense, but rather revenge,” declared the previous taoiseach, , a month after the massacre of last October 7. Mary Lou MacDonald, the leader of Sinn Féin, does not have the tricolor of her country on her X (Twitter) profile, but a Palestinian band, and has called for the closure of the Israeli embassy because of the Government’s responsibility for Benjamin Netanyahu in the “Gaza genocide”.
The players of the national basketball team refused to shake hands with their Israeli rivals in a recent international match; rock, pop and rap music groups call for the liberation of Palestine in their songs, and murals in Belfast celebrating peace have been replaced by ones in support of the Palestinian people. The IRA (of which Sinn Féin was the political arm during the Troubles) maintained cordial relations with the OAP, which included the shipment of arms.