On Friday morning, August 8th, around 20 protestors from Trinity BDS and SNF (Student Neutrality Front) led a protest in front of the Egyptian embassy. The protest accused the Egyptian government from preventing students with permission to study at Irish universities from leaving the besieged Gaza strip.
Egypt claims that its side of the crossing remains open, however, as TCD BDS chair Harry Johnston explained, “Egypt is refusing to use the force that they have to force aid into Gaza”.
Egypt, due to its proximity to Gaza, has been at the forefront of aid talks. The recent deportation of Global March for Gaza activists in Cairo has further brought notoriety to the country as they crack down on the Palestinian border.
Johnston further pointed out that it is not just Israel that is influencing this region-wide lockdown, but the US as well. Egypt has received 1.5 billion dollars of aid annually from the US, a country that is heavily involved in Israeli military and domestic affairs.
“[Egypt] is simply doing what they believe the US wants them to do, which is allow Israel to continue their genocide”, said Johnston. “As a result, they have completely capitulated to US foreign policy needs”.
Despite having smaller numbers than other, similar protests, the urgency was palpable. This was in no small part due to the Palestinians present. There were chants of “Stop the killing, stop the slaughter – Gaza needs food and water” or “El-Risi [the President of Egypt] you can’t hide, you’re supporting genocide”, among others. One protestor yelled in Arabic over the wall through a megaphone.
Upon conferring further with Johnston, mainly regarding where Trinity BDS was now headed, he described a shifting focus towards protests outside of the campus in support of organisations like IPSC (Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign). There is, to Johnston, “still a lot that’s very much wrong” on campus with the Columbia Dual BA partnership generating fears regarding political expression and oppression. This shift is no doubt in conjunction with the new Student Neutrality Front (SNF) who were involved in verbally confronting Mícheal Martin over government complicity just last week.
The protest was part of the many that have been organised by Trinity BDS since College agreed to fully divest from Israel, the first university in the western world to fully pledge to do so.
