Great Irish Famine historians issue St. Patrick’s Day statement on Gaza
Published
by
Richard Kuper
JVL Introduction
The trauma of the great Irish famine of the mid to late 1840s lives on in the collective memory as though it were yesterday.
So when Irish historians of the famine see what is happening in Gaza the resonances are immediate.
In a statement they call on Irish Americans to use their influence to avert a Famine as severe as the one faced by their ancestors.
They spell out that this means
- that the United States ceases arming Israel;
- that it puts pressure on Israel to halt its military action and lifts its blockade on Gaza;
- that it refrains from using its veto at the UN security council in relation to Palestine;
- that it restores funding to UNRWA, the agency best-equipped to provide relief; and
- that it acts as an honest broker to bring about an agreed political settlement between Israel and Palestine.
RK
This article was originally published by IrishCentral on Fri 15 Mar 2024. Read the original here.
Great Irish Famine historians issue St. Patrick's Day statement on Gaza
A group of historians is urging Irish Americans to use their influence to avert a Famine in Gaza as severe as the one faced by their Irish ancestors.
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Excellent letter
There must be a ceasefire what is happening is absolutely appalling words cannot truly express the full horror of it all.
I don’t think it’s stretching things too much to draw a parallel, Britain/Ireland 1840s, Israel/Palestine today.
“[S]ignificant amounts of food were leaving Ireland during the Famine years. In 1847 alone, the worst year of the Famine, almost 4,000 vessels carried food from Ireland to the major ports of Britain, that is, Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool and London. Over half of these ships went to Liverpool, the main port both for emigration and for cargo … [I]t is generally accepted that by the 1840s, Ireland had become the granary of Britain, supplying the grain-hungry British market sufficient to feed two million people annually. Grain was not the only major food export to Britain: the data suggests that at the time of the Famine the population of Britain depended heavily on Ireland for a wide range of foodstuffs, and not just grain. At the same time, large quantities of other merchandise were exported from Ireland. In the twelve month period following the second failure of the potato crop, exports from Ireland included horses and ponies (over 4,000), bones, lard, animal skins, honey, tongues, rags, shoes, soap, glue and seed. This vast export trade suggests the diversity of the Irish economy during these years and how disease and starvation existed side-by-side with a substantial commercial sector …”
From Food Exports from Ireland 1846-47 https://www.historyireland.com/food-exports-from-ireland-1846-47/
famine stalking through Gaza is just down the road from Israeli towns like Ashdod and even Tel Aviv where there are supermarkets stocked with groceries. This is a deliberate, genocidal starvation of Palestinian people. It must be quite clear that Israel’s handsmust be prized off Gaza without delay. Israel is completely unfit to occupy Gaza even for another day.
My deepest respect to the Irish people, the people of conscience and all of those keeping important, valuable historical memories alive.
Two ancestors of mine left Ireland in the mid-19th century; one in 1849 and the other in 1851. Both immigrated to the US.
I think that every atrocity afforded to the Gazan Palestinians and also to those in the West Bank could be found to have happened to both the ‘underclasses’ in this country and to the other ‘conquered’ peoples of the colonised countries that we invaded at sometime in the past. That’s where the ideas have come from that the Israeli right wing are using.