Dublin City & Sligo County Councils vote to fly Palestinian flag to mark 50 years of occupation

The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) welcomed today’s announcements that Dublin City Hall will fly the Palestinian flag between 15th May and June this year, following a vote by Dublin City Council this evening. Sligo County Council also voted to flag the flag from the Council Building between 15th May and the end of the month.

IPSC Chairperson Ms. Fatin Al-Tamimi, a Palestinian-Irish citizen whose family is originally from Hebron and Gaza in the occupied Palestinian territories, said:

“We in the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign sincerely thank Dublin City and Sligo County Councils for voting for these important symbolic measures. They are in the words of the motions themselves, heartening ‘gestures of solidarity with the people of Palestine living under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, with the Palestinian citizens of Israel denied basic democratic rights and with the over 7 million displaced Palestinians denied the right of return to their homeland’. I’m sure I am echoing the views of all Palestinians in Ireland in saying that these gestures have been truly soul-stirring and deeply emotional on a personal level.”

“In relation to Dublin, the Irish capital is a city that welcomed me when I first arrived here to start a new life, and I am so proud and honoured that my adoptive city will fly the flag of my homeland, Palestine, in an amazing act of solidarity with my people. We Palestinian Dubs will hold our head high knowing that the people of Dublin support our struggle for justice and self-determination.

“It is fitting that the flag will begin flying on May 15th, ‘Nakba Day’, or ‘the Day of the Catastrophe’, when we commemorate the forcible expulsion of over 750,000 indigenous Palestinians from their homeland between 1947 and 1949 to facilitate the creation of the apartheid state of Israel on 78% of historic Palestine. The refugees created during this ethnic cleansing and their descendants now number in the millions, and all are shamefully still denied their internationally mandated Right of Return to their homeland.

“It is also fitting that the flag will remain in place until the first week of June, which will mark the 50th year of Israel’s ongoing military occupation and illegal colonisation of the West Bank and Gaza. Israel continues to enjoy impunity for the decades of international law violations and human rights abuses it has committed against the Palestinian people, and so we ask Irish people to support the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign calling for an end to occupation and for freedom, justice and equality for the Palestinian people.

“Finally, we would like to especially thank Cllrs. John Lyons and Mannix Flynn for proposing and seconding the Dublin motion, Cllrs. Declan Bree, Chris McManus and Gino O’Boyle for proposing the Sligo motion, and all those Councillors who voted in favour of these historic actions.”

[1]: The full text of the Dublin motion [the Sligo motion is almost the same] reads: “Noting recent reports of diplomatic developments by the Irish state toward full recognition of the state of Palestine, aware also that Ireland accorded the Palestinian delegation in Dublin diplomatic status in 2014, the same year that witnessed both Houses of the Oireachtas pass motions in support of Palestinian statehood, this city council will fly the flag of Palestine over City Hall for the month of May 2017 in support of the above diplomatic moves and as a gesture of our solidarity with the people of Palestine living under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, with the Palestinian citizens of Israel denied basic democratic rights and with the over 7 million displaced Palestinians denied the right of return to their homeland.” – Proposed by Cllr. John Lyons, 30/03/17