The news from Gaza and Lebanon gets more and more depressing with each passing day and the failure of the International Community to respond to the TV images of death and destruction more and more inexcusable.
People the world over have been protesting at the continuation of this war and the genocide being rained down on the people of Gaza by the Israeli Armed Forces.
In Drogheda there has been a protest on West Street every Saturday afternoon for the last year. To many this might seem a waste of time and that standing in West Street waving the Lebanese flag and chanting “free, free, Palestine” achieves nothing.
But what else can people in this part of the world do? Forget about it?
Those terrified kids scrabbling around in the rubble of their homes, their equally terrified parents wondering how in the hell they can protect their families deserve at least to be remembered. It must mean something to know that worldwide, people are standing in solidarity with them.
So, when I went down to the protest outside St. Peter’s Church last Saturday, I was slightly perturbed to see that there were fewer people than normal taking part but then Brian Condra, one of the main organisers, told me that numbers were down because many of their regulars had travelled to Shannon to join a national protest.
“Today those who could not attend at Shannon Airport, stood as Drogheda people have since last year on the steps of the town centre, and called for a ceasefire in Gaza, and now Lebanon also” Mr. Condra said.
“Speakers called for the immediate end of the use of Shannon Airport to run armaments to the rogue state of Israel, we called for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) of Israeli goods.
“We condemned the warmongering exploitation of children and families, of working-class people, of non-combatants, of doctors, nurses and all ordinary people by the USA and other western nations.
“We demanded of our politicians that they live up to the moral standards expected of them and that they enact the Occupied Territories Bill immediately.
“We called for immediate action against the Israeli Defence Forces who have now extended their campaign of murder and genocide to include attacking peace keeping forces in the Lebanon, including our own.
“Most of all we stood with the oppressed against the oppressor.”
