Sinn Féin, the political wing of the terrorist Provisional IRA, pulled a pro-Palestinian stunt in the Irish parliament, the Dáil, yesterday during which Gerry Adams, party leader and alleged former IRA leader, manoeuvred members of both government and opposition into standing for a minute’s silence as a show of solidarity with Gaza.
Adams, in a move that was out of order, turned to the Speaker and said: “I ask you to invite the Dáil to stand for one minute in solidarity with the people of Gaza and the Middle East.” At the same time, the Sinn Féin deputies held up photocopies of the Palestinian flag.
As the Irish Times reported it, “Fianna Fáil and the Independent TDs jumped to their feet immediately and were sheepishly followed by Government Deputies.”
The Speaker was furious at having his function usurped: “I do not want to be put in that position ever again,” he warned Adams.
However, “some TDs silently fumed at the irony of a party which supported a campaign of terror and murder against the civilian population of its own country attempting to make political capital from the suffering being inflicted on the people of Gaza…[one Labour deputy] interjected ‘They know all about bombing and how to deliver bombs.'”
The stunt had started with Sinn Fein deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald accusing the Tánaiste, or deputy prime minister, Joan Burton of “a limp and lily-livered” response to events in Gaza. “Can the Tánaiste state clearly that there is no equivalence between the civilian Palestinian population and the Israeli military apparatus?”‘
Burton replied that the first and most important step was to extend the ceasefire and make it permanent.
Before the peace settlement in Northern Ireland, the Provisional IRA received arms and training from Middle Eastern terrorist groups including the Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation.