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

In the past ten days, we have heard a lot about Israel's right to defend itself. We heard it from Joe Biden, Ursula von der Leyen and the Taoiseach. What "defence" of an apartheid state looks like is now very clear. It means attempted starvation of more than 2 million people in Gaza. It means bombing hospitals, schools and apartment blocks. It means more than 3,000 Palestinians, including more than 1,000 children, being killed by Israeli airstrikes.

However, I want to ask a question: when does Palestine get the right to defend itself? Is 75 years of ethnic cleansing, the destruction of Palestinian homes and apartheid enough? Is 17 years of a brutal siege of Gaza enough? Is 10,000 Palestinians killed in the past 15 years enough? When will the world's leaders arrive in Palestine and declare that Palestinians have the right to defend themselves? The answer is that they will not because Israel serves their interests in the region. However, it is vital that those of us who support the Palestinian people say they have the right to resist. They have the right to rise up against occupation. They have the right to engage in a general strike against the occupation, as happened today in the West Bank, and they have the right to armed resistance – not armed resistance targeting civilians, of course, but armed resistance against the Israeli defence forces, in particular, in the coming threatened ground invasion. Those of us outside Palestine have not only a right but a duty to do everything we can to stop the genocide.

An old slogan of the Palestinian left states, "The road to Jerusalem begins in Cairo, Damascus and Amman." However, right now, as the bombs rain down in Gaza, that road begins in Dublin, Belfast and other cities right around the world. We need tens of millions of people on the streets this weekend to say, "Stop the slaughter, end the siege, and end the occupation."

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