DUBLIN, Ireland (JTA) — Several Irish politicians and adventure travel writer Dervla Murphy will join a group of Irish anti-Israel activists on a boat bound for Gaza next month.
The group, which is expected to sail for the Palestinian territory from an undisclosed Mediterranean port on March 30, will be led by two protesters who took part in the Gaza-bound flotilla that was intercepted by Israeli commandos last May, leading to the death of nine Turkish activists aboard the Mavi Marmara.
One of the politicians scheduled to travel on the Irish ship is Aengus O Snodaigh, who in 2009 compared Ireland’s only Jewish parliamentarian to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. O’Snodaigh was prevented from boarding last May’s flotilla.
Murphy, who is writing a book about the Middle East, including her impressions of Israelis and Palestinians, said she contacted the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign because she felt “so strongly about the whole situation in Gaza.”
“I think the flotilla is a good way of drawing international attention to what is going on there,” she told the Irish Times. “I hate publicity of any kind, and this is the last thing I would normally do. It shows how passionately I feel about Gaza.”
