Why is Ireland one of the most pro-Palestinian countries?

As the war between Israel and Hamas nears the six-month mark, the global community remains divided between support for Israel and support for the Palestinian people. Muslim-majority Middle Eastern countries continue to back the Palestinians and most Western governments are standing by Israel, but there is an outlying European Union nation that has consistently shown strong support for the Palestinians: Ireland. 

Nearly 80% of Irish people back the Palestinians and think that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, according to the most recent polling. This high level of support for the Palestinian people may come as a surprise to those looking in from the outside, given that Ireland is a majority-white, majority-Catholic country situated more than 2,000 miles away from the Middle East.

While many people in the EU and other Western countries are rallying behind the Palestinians — and support for Israel is slowly declining — Ireland's public backing of the Palestinians is among the highest outside of the Middle East. This support is not new, either — in 1980, Ireland became the first EU country to back the creation of a Palestinian state. Why is Ireland so united in its support for the Palestinian people? 

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What did the commentators say?

The root of the support can largely be traced back to historical similarities between the region of Palestine and Ireland. Both are former colonies of the United Kingdom; Ireland gained independence in 1921, while the British ceded Palestine upon the creation of Israel in 1948. Northern Ireland, which remains part of the U.K., also experienced widespread violence from the 1960s to the 1990s during a paramilitary conflict known as The Troubles. 

As a result, many people in Ireland say their "experience of British occupation — as well as their own sectarian conflict, and 18th-century famine — gives them empathy and shared history with the Palestinian struggle," Lauren Frayer and Fatima Al-Kassab said for NPR. And beyond the Palestinians, many in Ireland "identify more with the Global South's experience of imperialism and colonialism," Frayer and Al-Kassab said. 

Sympathy for Palestinians is "rooted in Ireland's history," Niall Holohan, a former Irish diplomat to the Palestinian Authority, said to The Guardian. The Irish people "feel we have been victimized over the centuries. It's part of our psyche — underneath it all we side with the underdog," Holohan said. He also noted that Ireland's small Jewish population of around 2,500 people — or 0.05% of Ireland's total population — makes the country's Palestinian support more visible. Ireland has become a "template for Palestine" that has "undoubtedly shaped how people from Ireland engage with postcolonial conflicts," Jane Ohlmeyer, a history professor at Trinity College, said to The Guardian. 

The "apparatus of occupation — armed military patrols on city streets, military checkpoints, segregated cities and separation walls — that shape daily life today in occupied Palestine" is very similar to the "one once utilized by the British in Northern Ireland," Aisling Walsh said for Al Jazeera. This is the main reason as to "why the people of Ireland widely identify with and eagerly support the Palestinians."

What next? 

Beyond public opinion, lawmakers throughout Ireland have also been somewhat of an outlier among EU countries in their support for the Palestinians. Politicians "across Ireland's political spectrum were among the first in Europe to call for the protection of Palestinian civilians and denounce the scale of Israel's response," The New York Times said. 

Those at the top of the government have expressed sentiments standing with both Israel and Gaza. Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said he "strongly believed that Israel had the right to defend itself, but that what was unfolding in Gaza 'resembles something approaching revenge,'" the Times said. He has since called for a cease-fire from Israel and the release of the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas. Irish President Michael D. Higgins has also condemned Hamas' attacks on Israel while criticizing Israel's response. 

Varadkar is set to meet with President Joe Biden on Friday for their annual St. Patrick's Day celebration. That meeting will be used to tell Biden "how Irish people feel, and that is that we want to see a cease-fire immediately, for the killing to stop, the hostages to be released without condition, [and] food and medicine to get into Gaza," Varadkar told reporters.