DUBLIN — When Fatin Al Tamimi immigrated to Ireland in 1988, she felt like hers was the only hijab on the streets of Dublin. There weren't many other Arabs or Muslims in Ireland at that time.
Ireland may be a mostly white European country, but many Irish people say they identify more with the Global South's experience of imperialism and colonialism."It's the same with South Africa, it's the same with South America," says Kirsten Farrelly, an activist with the group Mothers Against Genocide, which stages weekly demonstrations outside the Israeli Embassy in Dublin.
The first British governor of Jerusalem, Ronald Storrs, made that direct parallel himself. Storrs, who served from 1917 to 1926, later wrote in his 1937 book,to Palestine during those years,"if not to form the Jewish State," might also serve the purpose of"forming for England a little loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism."
But Ireland"is an outlier in that we're a European nation," he says."To see white people speaking out like that, I think that does have international impact." For example, Nazi airmen whose planes went down over Ireland and Nazi sailors who shipwrecked on Irish shores were held prisoner by Irish authorities through the end of the war. But their Allied counterparts wereto keep fighting.
"So when people say Ireland was antisemitic in World War II, it's almost weaponized against people in Ireland who want to speak out against Israel," Clarke says.Today, support for the Palestinians feels most pronounced in Northern Ireland. Many Irish nationalists there compare their situation under British rule to Palestinians under Israeli occupation.
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