O’Neill continues to pass off F-35 whitewash as pro-Palestine policy

North of Ireland First Minister Michelle O’Neill today again posed as a defender of Palestine by aligning herself with the recent Invest NI cover-up conducted by her party colleague, Economy Minister Caoimhe Archibald. Last week, in an announcement panned by local Palestine activists, Archibald said a review conducted by Invest NI – the government “Regional Economic Development Agency” – indicated no support for “projects that provide arms or components to Israel”.

Speaking at Stormont today, O’Neill said Archibald was correct to also rule the Executive out of involvement in trade talks between the Starmer regime and so-called Israel. The Sinn Féin Vice President said:

Yes, I believe the minister is absolutely correct in making a decision. It’s a policy decision that she has outlined in a direct response to the genocide that’s happened in Palestine.

So I think it’s wholly appropriate that she would make that call in terms of no trade with companies that are arming Israel.

F-35 manufacture

O’Neill had been subject to craven questioning from an unknown journalist more preoccupied by recent legal action taken against Archibald than with Stormont’s assistance of so-called Israel’s genocide. The Economy Minister has been hit with a pre-action protocol letter from the think tank Unionist Voice Policy Studies (UVPS). Their claim is that Archibald has no authority to make such a ruling, given international trade is not a devolved matter.

All this fretting from the pro-genocide wing of Six Counties politics is taking place despite the fact Archibald has thus far been involved in whitewashing local government’s participation in Zionist mass slaughter. Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) have identified multiple sites around the Six Counties which manufacture F-35 parts. The warplanes have been a key cog in the Zionist entity’s machinery of genocide throughout the last two years. Oxfam’s policy adviser on arms and conflict Martin Butcher has described it as a certainty that parts made locally are going to the illegitimate pseudo state “either in new aircraft from the United States or as parts from a regional warehouse”.

Yet Archibald’s weasel-worded report skirts around this essential truth via the linguistic contortion that parts made by companies here are not being shipped directly to so-called Israel. Rather, they enter a global pool of components, which are ultimately brought together to construct the killing machine that has assisted the Zionist land theft project in murdering potentially 680,000 Palestinians.

Legal team challenging Invest NI blast their untruths

Parts are also stored in warehouses to be shipped off as replacements for wear and tear. Given the extent to which ‘Israel’ has bombed Gaza – subjecting it to more than 18 times the tonnes of explosives per square kilometre dropped on Vietnam by the US – one can imagine replacing worn components was a frequent occurrence. A major investigation into Invest NI’s role in funding the F-35 programme found that representatives from the body met Dutch officials with a view to being involved in this storage of parts. The Netherlands operates a warehouse used for this purpose, and an Invest NI team sought to win a tender from the Dutch Ministry of Defence to supply these facilities with parts for the warplane.

The legal team at Madden & Finucane Solicitors bringing a Judicial Review against Invest NI scoffed at Archibald’s claims:

Despite the Minister stating that Invest NI does not support the manufacture of arms or their components for Israel, it is clear from information obtained by our client that Invest NI funds may have been used to create parts for F-35 fighter jets which have been used to drop bombs in Gaza during the recent genocide.

They highlighted how the report acknowledged:

…it is not possible for Invest NI or its client companies to fully track or determine the final destination of exported goods once they enter complex supply chains. The inability to track components is highly concerning when the components may have been used to commit serious humanitarian crimes.

Their client, Cassidy Ferrari said:

The Minister should commit to an immediate end to funding for any project that could result in components ending up in weapons used by the Israeli Defence Forces. Any public funds that may have been used in this way should be clawed back to be used instead to alleviate local issues, such as health and housing.

This was much the same demand made by protesters who stormed an Invest NI conference on Wednesday October 15, much to the embarrassment of the agency’s executives. In suspicious timing, Archibald that very evening belched out her smokescreen report, a clear intention to undermine the momentum that local Palestine activists had built in challenging the use of public money for the machinery of mass murder.

Stormont must end its role in the cycle of death

The merchants of death whose robbing of public funds takes bread from the starving and medicine from the sick continue to profit from the West Asian meltdown triggered by Zionist barbarism. Some may celebrate Iran’s enhanced capacity to defend itself having acquired 48 of Russia’s SU-35 warplanes, but this ultimately represents another escalation of firepower in a region awash with tools of carnage. The $6 billion spent would have seen much more constructive use in tending to the welfare of impoverished Iranians bludgeoned by brutal US sanctions, but Western unwillingness to reign in Netanyahu and co’s destructiveness sees the arms race continue.

For Stormont, the response must be to turn away from this nihilism decisively. A halting of weapons manufacture should be the immediate goal, with factories repurposed for life-enhancing tools rather than those that extinguish it.

Similarly, threats of legal action regarding the limitations of devolved power should be dismissed. The Executive here should operate under the supreme command of international law, which demands all steps are taken to prevent and punish genocide. That means a complete cessation of trade with the Zionist entity, in line with Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) guidance, given any monies funnelled to the butchers of West Jerusalem enable them to perpetuate their atrocities. No party can claim to be pro-Palestine until that is the policy they pursue.

Featured image via