Cloughjordan talk on palestine

Elaine Bradley, former CEO of Volunteering Ireland, visited Cloughjordan recently to speak at an event in the MacDonagh Heritage Centre.
Ms Bradley had recently returned from a nine-month visit to Gaza and the West Bank in Palestine, where she heard first-hand accounts and personally witnessed the impact of last year’s 50-day bombardment of Gaza, and the ongoing occupation of the West Bank. Ms Bradley described the aftermath of the bombings by Israel, which took place in August 2014, as “devastating” and “similar to Dresden or Hiroshima” in its level of destruction. She also detailed the injuries people were left with, and how the nature of these injuries implied the use of new types of weaponry by the Israeli military. The bombardment left more than 2,100 Palestinians dead in Gaza along with 66 Israeli soldiers and seven civilians in Israel.
Elaine Bradley is currently doing a PhD in Trinity College on the topic of Palestine, and has previously worked for the EU, UN and other international organisations. She criticised such organisations for their role in maintaining the occupation and the need for international law to be upheld. She said Israel has contravened numerous international laws in recent years including the imprisonment of children, confiscation of land, the ongoing blockade of Gaza, construction of the separation wall, and the ongoing construction of settlements in the West Bank, where more than 650,000 illegal settlers now live.
Ms Bradley was joined by Ala Hilu, a community activist from Bethlehem, who is spending five weeks in Cloughjordan, and who spoke about his personal experience of living in the West Bank.
Mr Hilu runs the up-cycling initiative, Resign Palestine, and is the first participant in a community-sponsored placement whereby individual community activists will spend time in Cloughjordan to exchange experiences and skills. Mr Hilu is running a number of up-cycling workshops in Cloughjordan during his stay, as well as visiting schools in the village and in Nenagh.
The Cloughjordan to Palestine group organised the event to build awareness of the impact of the 2014 attacks and the ongoing Israeli occupation in general. The group has gained support from the business community in Cloughjordan for a boycott of Israeli goods, and is organising a number of events in the coming month including up-cycling workshops, film screenings, fundraising events and talks. More information can be found by following their Facebook page or by email – www.facebook.com/Cloughjordantopalestine or cloughjordantopalestine@gmail.com.