Garry Walsh 🍉

Election 2024 and a call to action: We are close to making history with the Occupied Territories Bill, but we need your support. Tell your candidates that it’s time for action! We have been campaigning on the Occupied Territories Bill for six years, and I don’t think it’s ever been busier than the past few months. We’ve made incredible progress and I truly believe we’re close to making history - to taking a stand for justice in Palestine that goes beyond words of condemnation. As the election kicks off today, I’m calling on the incredible network of activists and organisations across Ireland to keep going. I’m proud to campaign with you, and we’re not done yet. 🇵🇸 When I first tabled this legislation in 2018, I knew it was the right thing to do. Six years later, that’s only become clearer. When we look at the horror unfolding in Gaza and the West Bank, it should summon in us the anger to demand real action. How can the world look on and do so little? I firmly believe that we have a responsibility to break that trend – to ensure there are finally some real consequences for Israel’s flagrant violations of international law and theft of Palestinian land. And we have legislation ready to do it. It shouldn’t have taken this long, but for the first time ever we can now say that all political parties have finally come on board. We have worked hard to build consensus, and it is now unanimous. As @SimonHarrisTD @MichealMartinTD @rodericogorman @MaryLouMcDonald @HollyCairnsTD @Ivanabacik @RBoydBarrett and more have all told the Dáil: after the historic ICJ ruling, it is now a firm legal *obligation* on all states to ban all trade and investment in Israel’s illegal settlements. No more theft of land without consequences. No more ifs or buts. Ireland can lead on this, and there’s no more time to waste. We should’ve passed this Bill six years ago – we certainly should’ve passed it in the lifetime of this Dáil. But no matter, we will keep going. Because we have made huge progress: public awareness and demand has never been higher, the legal barriers we’ve been fighting for years have finally been dropped, a money message has been formally granted, and for the first time ever *all* parties have pledged to do this. But we know that promises before an election won’t mean anything unless they’re held to account. So that’s exactly what we’re going to do – starting tomorrow at the @ipsc48 national march for Palestine. We’ll be there behind the #PassTheOTB banner, please come and join us. We now have three weeks to tell every single candidate, TD and party that as soon as a new Dáil is elected, to get into Leinster House, make any last changes to strengthen the Bill, and get it passed immediately. I’ll be working with Govt and opposition to make sure that happens. It’s what I’ve been doing since 2018, and we will keep going until this Bill is law. Frances