Genocide supporting politicians reinstate Zionist fundraiser

Pro-Palestine campaign group Mothers Against Genocide are among those calling on Dublin’s National Concert Hall (NCH) to cancel a charity event which will raise money for Magen David Adom (MDA). MDA are an ambulance charity based in so-called ‘Israel’. Multiple human rights groups have accused the group of failing to provide medical care to wounded Palestinians, resulting in their deaths.

Mothers Against Genocide say:

The National Concert Hall has reinstated a booking for a fundraising event linked to an Israeli ambulance service with a documented record of denying medical care to Palestinians.

This is a clear violation of medical neutrality and basic human rights. It comes in the context of ongoing violence where healthcare workers and emergency responders have been systematically targeted.

A publicly funded Irish institution must not provide a platform for organisations complicit in apartheid and genocide.

They are encouraging people to email the venue and voice their opposition to the event. Here is the link to do that (it will redirect to your email provider). The fundraiser is currently set to go ahead at an undisclosed date.

Genocide supporting politicians intervene to reinstate Zionist fundraiser

The event is being organised by the insufferable Alan Shatter, a staunchly Zionist ex-TD. He is the current chair of Magen David Adom Ireland. The Irish Times reported that the NCH initially booked the event, then:

…revoked the booking on the basis that the national cultural institution was politically neutral.

However, the fundraiser is now back on, seemingly in part due to intervention from senior politicians. At virtually every turn, the current Irish government has sided with the Zionist pseudo-state. The Times report says:

The disputed event is now set to proceed on an unconfirmed date, but only after NCH board talks and discussions with Irish diplomats and the Department of Culture.

Minister for Culture Patrick O’Donovan is understood to be annoyed at the way the matter was handled by the concert hall, which said it “misunderstood” the nature of the charity but has since changed its stance.

Serial abuses of ambulance charity

The ‘nature of the charity’ seems pretty clear from reporting by human rights groups. A 2015 article by Euro-Med Monitor said:

The Red Cross-affiliated Israeli agency charged under the Geneva Convention with providing emergency medical aid is discriminating against Palestinians…

The Israeli organisation Magen David Adom (MDA)…is giving top priority to the treatment of injured Israelis, while neglecting wounded Palestinians…

It cited cases such as one in which:

Mohammed Ismail Al-Shobaki, 20, attempted to stab an Israeli soldier near the entrance to Al-Fawwar camp in southern Hebron, then was shot and left bleeding on the ground. Euro-Med Monitor has access to a videotape showing the availability of Israeli ambulances in the area, but while Israeli medical staff provided immediate help to the injured Israeli soldier, the calls of help of from Al-Shobaky went unanswered until he died.

Attacking an Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) soldier is legal under international law, as they are an army illegally occupying Palestine. Medics are bound by law to treat all patients equally.

In a 2016 report, Al Jazeera cited the Zionist entity’s own Physicians for Human Rights in Israel (PHR-I) group, who:

…found that wounded Palestinians had been left untreated for as long as two hours.

PHR-I also:

…accused Israel’s leading medical bodies – the Israeli Medical Association, which lays down ethical codes, and Magen David Adom, which supervises ambulance services – of ignoring the evidence it has collected of such abuses.

In a more recent case, Haaretz reported how MDA ambulance staff:

…refused to transport a Palestinian man from an East Jerusalem clinic on Wednesday despite concerns that he was suffering a cardiac emergency, because paramedics suspected he was in Israel without a permit.

A doctor at the scene said that, with the ambulance at the scene, a paramedic requested an ID card from Musa:

While the patient was in pain. I had never seen anything like it – it was very strange.

Very strange and very illegal. As Euro-Med point out, it is:

…prohibited…under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Article 5 of the convention obligates all signatories to work to eliminate racial discrimination in all its forms and to guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, colour, or national or ethnic origin, to equality before the law—including regarding access to medical care.

Media again ignores accusations against Zionists

In another example of the extraordinary deference to Zionism which legacy media continues to exhibit, The Irish Times has no mention of the accusations against MDA. The media outlet instead is happy to parrot the charity’s own propaganda, describing it as:

…a voluntary ambulance service, medical care and treatment for persons irrespective of their nationality, race, religion, ethnic origin, age, disability, sexual orientation or political affiliation.

Even if MDA were doing their job properly, sending them money is still pumping funds into the settler-colony’s economy. The salaries of their 3,500 staff will be taxed by the ‘Israeli’ government, who will then use that money to buy the weaponry used in the mass murder of Palestinians.

The BDS movement calls for non-association with any ‘Israeli’ organisation that is not avowedly anti-Zionist. Strict adherence to this criterion is one of the few ways of holding the rogue entity to account while our ruling classes and media fail to do so.

Featured image via the Canary

Tags: Ireland