Should Sinn Féin Go To the White House on St Patrick’s Day?
/At the time of writing we are on day 147 of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, with over 29,000 Palestinians killed according to the official figures, with many thousands more injured and unaccounted for. We are also 3 weeks away from the annual St. Patrick’s Day event at the White House, when leaders of the main political parties in Ireland will meet and greet with the US president Joe Biden. In Ireland, the debate is still ongoing whether or not Irish representatives should attend or boycott the meeting. In particular the spotlight is on the decision of Sinn Féin to attend the meeting in spite of wide spread calls from the palestine solidarity movement to boycott the event because of the USA’s continued support and funding of the horrific genocide being carried out in Palestine. Sinn Féin have come in for particular attention on this occasion because they have historically been outspoken on the issue of Palestinian rights, and consistently raised the issue in public forums, social media, and in the halls of the legislative bodies both north and south of the island of Ireland. In many ways, the expectations of Sinn Féin to do the right thing for Palestine are much higher than compared to the main power brokers in the south, Fianna Fáil, and Fine Gael. So should Sinn Féin attend the White House event on St. Patrick’s Day this year or not?
Sinn Féin themselves have consistently made the argument that they should. The main thrust of their argument is that they will attend the event to represent Palestinian interests in the White House, and make a case to Joe Biden for an immediate ceasefire in Palestine. Sinn Féin Vice president and Stormont First Minister Michelle O’ Neil, and President Mary Lou McDonald have both declared that they will go to the White House ‘in pursuit of peace’, and indeed O’ Neill stated that in doing so they will “fulfill our promise to the Palestinian ambassador and the Palestinian people”.
In relation to this ‘promise’ to the Ambassador, Dr Jilan Wahba Abdalmajid, (who in fact is a representative of the West Bank based Palestinian Authority, and not a representative of the Palestinian people as a whole) seems to come from a roundabout endorsement of the visit given by Dr. Abdalmajid in the media to the visit “It’s a celebration, it’s your national day. It’s an important event. I know that you need to celebrate, it’s totally your right to do that, but this time because of what’s going on in Palestine I just want to hear it if they go, that they mention it.”
Indeed Sinn Féin held an event in the Europa Hotel in Belfast recently with the seeming intention of bolstering this endorsement of their trip to Washington. The event was subsequently interrupted by a small group of activists from Palestine who highlighted the unrepresentative nature of Dr. Abdalmajid and the Palestinian Authority, and indeed to call for a boycott of the White House event. They were ejected from the event to the jeers of the attending crowd and appeared to upset the carefully choreographed event. It certainly overshadowed the reporting of the event in the media reports in subsequent days. Anyway, the Sinn Féin argument continues that they will represent the interests of the Palestinian people in the White House. Perhaps they feel that the tacit endorsement from Dr. Abdalmajid is tantamount to a mandate to represent the people of Palestine in the White House. However, bearing in mind that the Ambassador certainly does not represent the people of Gaza, the Hamas leadership, or the fighters resisting the genocide in Gaza, it does begger belief that this is a legitimate reason for attending the event with Joe Biden.
Gaza born Belfast resident Saeb Shaath who has lost 42 family members since Israel began its indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks by Hamas, said he was “deeply disappointed” by the party. “We consider Sinn Féin as our brothers and sisters. We have counted on them in the past to stand with the people of Palestine. I am deeply disappointed that they will entertain Joe Biden in the White House,” he said. “It is very obvious that Joe Biden is involved in supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza. It is wrong for Sinn Féin to go to the White House.”
Each time Anthony Blinken has visited the West Bank since October 7th, he has been met with fierce protests on the streets of Ramallah and in terms of support from the West Bank for the visit to the White House, over 20 organizations from civil society have signed a statement calling on the White House Visit to be boycotted this year by allies of Palestine who intend to go. The signatories include BADIL, a leading Palestinian rights organization in the West bank, who represent a further 40+ Palestinian organizations. The statements reads:
“We, as a Palestinian organisation and member of Palestinian civil society declare that in light of the USA’s continued support, funding, and participation in the current genocide being carried out against our people in Gaza, the recent defunding of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine, and the USA’s continued role in the illegal occupation of Palestine, do not endorse the St Patrick’s Day engagement at the White House.
We encourage advocates of Palestinian freedom who have been invited to celebrate St Patricks’s Day in the White House to boycott this event. We believe that boycotting the event would send an unequivocal message of solidarity with Palestine to Joe Biden and the White House, and provide a courageous example to other nations to take a similar stance in the face of the USA’s role in the Gaza genocide.
In making this call we gratefully acknowledge the long standing solidarity between Ireland and Palestine and hope that this solidarity continues with great strength until Palestine is free, from the river to the sea.”
In America members of the Palestinian American community recently refused a meeting with the US State Department in February stating: “They (Blinken and Joe Biden) show us every day whose lives they value and whose lives they consider disposable. We will not be attending this discussion which can only amount to a box-ticking exercise" Furthermore, A civil case accusing Joe Biden and other senior US officials of being complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza has begun at a federal court in California. With an impending presidential election, the Arab Democratic vote is waining because of Biden’s consistent support for the genocide in Gaza. Biden needs the Arab American vote in the same way that he needs the Irish American vote, and he is certainly depending on the St. Patrick’s day meeting with Irish politicians to nail down that Irish support for his election campaign.
Additional arguments in favor of the visit made by Sinn Féin include, MacDonald’s suggestion that boycotting the event would be ‘most welcome by the pro-Israeli lobby’, and Gerry Adams’s declaration that the Palestinian’s would ‘understand’ if Sinn Féin goes to the White House to pursue their own political agenda.
The above quote from Adams is arguably the most transparent statement from Sinn Féin on the issue of the White House visit to date. It makes clear that even if meeting Joe Biden is contradictory to the basic principles of solidarity with Palestine, if it furthers Sinn Féin’s own agenda, then the meeting must go ahead. In a way it is a refreshing statement because it puts aside the seeming pretense of going to the White House ‘for Palestine’ and makes it clear that the visit is a selfish venture for Sinn Féin. It does however raise the timely and important questions of; Can one be allied with Palestine and at the same time be allied with the USA given the White House’s ‘ironclad’ support for Israel?’ Further, if being allied with America is key to the advancement of the Sinn Féin struggle, it raises serious questions about the nature of that struggle today. America is the mother of global imperialism, a genocide enabler, and funder of the mass murder of Palestinian’s and destruction of every semblance of life in Gaza. Why must we maintain a cozy relationship with such a government? Sinn Féin consistently point to America playing a key part in the peace process in Ireland as a key reason for maintaining this relationship, but at what point will they decide that being allied with the White House and seemingly being dependant on US support for their somewhat inevitable ascension to power in the south of Ireland, and advancement in the north, is an untenable position? When it comes to US support for Israel, it is black and white. As Biden has repeated many times himself “if there were not an Israel, the USA would have to invent one”.
Sinn Féin's insistence on meeting Joe Biden this St. Patrick's day is arguably a watershed moment in their evolution as a political party. It has brought them to a fork in the road. One road points to performative solidarity with Palestine, the legitimization of genocide Joe in the face of millions of Irish Amercians, and the bonding of Sinn Féin’s political future to Amercian imperialism. The other road leads to a departure of such close links with Washington, a real tangible action for Palestine that will represent Irish people’s solidarity with Palestine and provide a brave example for other nations to turn their back’s on America for as long as they fund genocide. Its also a potential snapshot of a future sovereign and united Ireland that can take the right road, even when there may be political or economic consequences for doing so. At public demonstrations, this meeting is certainly a red-line issue for many potential Sinn Féín voters and grassroots activists, who just cannot reconcile meeting Joe Biden with a supposed pro-Palestine party.
While it is very likely that many of Sinn Féin’s rank and file would get behind a boycott of the White House as a form of powerful protest against America’s participation in genocide, and that the Palestine solidarity movement in general would laud a radical stance by Sinn Féin when it comes to Palestine (not only for the benefit of Palestine but for the strength of left-wing politics in Ireland generally), there are some clues that Sinn Féin are indeed moving away from the desire to seriously challenge the status quo with their politics. At the beginning of Israel's attack on Gaza in October 2023, Sinn Féin did not back widespread calls to expel the Israeli ambassador to Ireland, and voted against several motions in city councils to call for her expulsion, despite their long standing position on the issue being to support this call. This position was changed once again to support the call to expel the ambassador, conveniently right before the Sinn Féin 2023 Ard-Fheis and seemingly in response to great pressure from the grassroots of the party and pressure from national Palestine demonstrations up and down the country. The departure from their long standing stance on the Israeli ambassador, and their current position on the White House visit really does beg the question, why all of a sudden do Sinn Féin appear to be very reluctant to upset the political applecart of Israel’s allies?
It has also been suggested by Sinn Féin that they see the development of the peace process in Ireland as a valid point of reference and relevant paradigm for peace in Palestine. That the USA played an important part in promoting peace in Ireland and therefore can be a force for peace in Palestine. This argument is flawed at best, on many fronts. The USA is actively funding and supporting the ongoing occupation of Palestine, the genocide in Gaza, and the development of Israel’s colonial project in Palestine. They have political and economic interests in maintaining the occupation of Palestine and are a key player in pushing Arab nations to normalize relations with Israel. So for starters, America is no broker for peace in Palestine. Second of all, the political conditions that existed in Ireland for the peace process to take hold do not exist in Palestine today. Israel has zero desire, need, or incentive to negotiate with Palestine for a sustainable resolution. They are led by a far right government who want to colonize the entirety of Palestinian land, and have the support of the global West in doing so. The Palestinian Authority is being propped by the USA and by Israel as proxy for maintaining the occupation in the West Bank and scuppering decent amongst Palestinians, and it is subservient and beholden to the whims of the Israeli occupation. The support for the Palestinian Authority is at rock bottom on the streets of West Bank and next to non-existent in Gaza, and while the PA maintain the illusion for a potential future ‘2 state solution’ the Israeli settlement project in the West Bank has continued unabated and even at an accelerated rate in recent years despite the settlement building being supposedly illegal under international law. Continued Israeli settlement expansion, annexation of land, home demolitions, apartheid wall, administrative detention, arbitrary checkpoints, military incursions, unabated killing by Israeli soldiers, state sanctioned settler attacks, restrictions on movement, travel, work, healthcare, education, and every aspect of life by Israel, all with the full support of the USA makes the 2 state solution an illusion that has been shattered into a million pieces long before October 7th. In short, the conditions that existed in Ireland for peace and the incubation of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement are non-existent in Palestine today, and the paradigms applied in Ireland cannot be applied effectively in Palestine. To make the comparison and hold up the Good Friday Agreement as a prospective model for Palestine is ignorant of the conditions there at best, and disingenuous at worst.
As the genocide continues, it is imperative that everyone involved in the solidarity movement, political parties and other, realize that solidarity is worth very little when it is abandoned as soon as there is something at stake. For Sinn Féin there is potentially a lot at stake if they boycott Joe Biden this St. Patrick’s Day. The snub will surely be felt by Biden who prides himself on his Irish heritage. Irish American supporters of Israel may indeed take offence to the snub as well, which may have a knock on effect on support for Sinn Féin which they seem to be relying on for their campaigns both north and south of the border. However, Palestine has never had a greater hour of need, and we must all step up to the plate, including Sinn Féin. In terms of Irish solidarity for Palestine Sinn Féin have a chance to do something that has never been done before. They should boycott the White House not just for Palestine, but for Ireland. A boycott will set them apart from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael who will both be represented on St. Patrick’s Day and who have failed time and time again to act strongly for Palestine throughout the years. Apart from standing up for Palestine, a boycott will help purge Ireland of our own complicity in genocide through our failure to act effectively for Palestine on a political level. Raising a glass with the main funder and supporter of a genocide that is killing tens of thousands of innocent people makes us even more complicit. Endeavouring to develop further economic and political relations with a government that supplies the weapons to murder men, women and children wholesale crystallised this complicity.
It has been said both in public and private that those who oppose Sinn Féin meeting with Joe Biden in March are ‘fracturing’ the Palestine solidarity movement in Ireland, and ‘preventing a broad base of support’ for Palestine across Irish society, and indeed that because there are other political parties that have been consistently active in the Palestine solidarity movement who oppose the White House meeting, that the issue is being used as an opportunity for political point scoring against Sinn Féin. The fact of the matter is that Sinn Féin are the only group from the widely cast solidarity movement that are advocating in favor of the White House meeting. Suggesting that opposing the meeting is actually an underhanded way of hurting Sinn Féin’s advance as a political party is a disingenuous dig to try and delegitimize the calls for them to boycott the meeting. The Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC), the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, Mothers Against Genocide, Cairde Palestine, Gael’s Against Genocide, and many more groups and organisations who have taken to the streets in their hundreds and thousands for Palestine since October 7th are all calling for a White House Boycott. There is a petition circulating calling on a White House Boycott that has over 16,000 signatures at the time of writing. It seems that the movement is quite united in favor of boycotting Joe Biden. On February 23rd 2024 Sinn féin voted against a motion to boycott the White House Visit. Despite Sinn Féin’s insistence that boycotting the White House on St. Patrick’s day would simply be ignored by one and all, the likely outcome of a boycott is quite to the contrary. It’s worth repeating, that it would certainly send a message to the USA that Ireland will not break bread with genocide perpetrators, would be a brave stand with Palestine, and would go a long way towards undoing Ireland’s complicity in the ethnic cleansing and murder of Palestinians.
And what about the 18th of March? The day after the St. Patrick’s Day event in the White House. I am sure we will see smiling photos of our politicians with genocide Joe in our papers. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will go back to ‘business as usual’ paying lip service to Palestinian’s right not to be bombed and maimed, but will Sinn Féin try to fudge the fact that they hob-nobbed with the one man who could turn off the flow of finances and weapons to Israel in the morning but chooses not to, and position themselves once again as champions of Palestine in Ireland? That remains to be seen. But that they will be allowed to do so by the wider solidarity movement is questionable judging by the response of the 100,000 people in Dublin on January 14th who roared in support in response to Bernadette McAliskey when she said "Palestine is the litmus test of our politics ... Joe Biden is an enabler of genocide ... Who in their right mind would go to America and hand the bastard a bowl of fecking shamrocks!".