Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

When Leo Varadkar was in Boston, he said that the US and Ireland must dedicate themselves to peace in Gaza. The US Administration has continued to dedicate itself to supporting, financing and arming genocide, but students across America have fought for peace and protested against genocide and for their universities to divest from that genocide. Students at Columbia University, for example, have occupied the administration building and renamed it in honour of Hind Rajab, a frightened six-year-old girl in Gaza who was killed while she hid alone in her family's car along with the paramedics who went to rescue her. Many other university students have done the same.

What has happened now is that the US state has cracked down with incredible brutality on peaceful protesting students as well as smearing them as anti-Semitic. The NYPD has invaded Columbia University. It is deploying military grade equipment. We see vehicles that are like tanks, rolling down the streets to attack an occupation of students. It is using tear gas and flash grenades and is brutalising students with the full blessing and authorisation of the Administration. We see NYPD officers assaulting students and pushing them down stairs, leaving one unconscious. At UCLA, instead of the state directly doing it, it has stood back while, for over seven hours, right wing, pro-Zionist gangs have attacked the camps in all sorts of ways, using gas canisters and pepper spray and throwing fireworks and bricks at these peaceful protestors. Incredible state repression and a cracking down on democratic rights are being used in the US to stop those who are raising their voices against genocide happening in the Middle East. Will the Taoiseach raise his voice against this? Will he encourage students in this country to follow the lead of students in the US by occupying universities to say there must be no connections between universities in Ireland or around the world with Israel?

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