Ireland has become the latest nation to say it will intervene in the genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, in a reflection of the country’s long-standing position of solidarity with the Palestinian cause.

Ireland announced this week it would file its intervention, adding to growing international pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to dial back its devastating assault on Gaza and end severe restrictions on food aid pushing Palestinians toward famine.

In a speech on Wednesday, Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin said that both the Hamas October 7 attack in Israel and Israel’s war in Gaza “represents the blatant violation of international law on a mass scale.”

The case was brought to the ICJ by South Africa, and in an initial ruling in January, the court ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza, but stopped short of accusing it of genocide.

According to reports, Ireland is expected to include in its intervention the argument that Israel’s blocking of food aid to Gaza could be considered an act of genocide.

A ‘shared colonial experience’

Ireland’s position on the Israel-Hamas conflict has made it an outlier among European governments. Zoë Lawlor, who leads the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC), said there was “deep empathy and sympathy in Ireland with Palestinian people.”

A man walks past graffiti reading ‘Free Palestine’, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Dublin, Ireland, November 15.

Decades later, it was the Israeli occupation of the remainder of historic Palestine from 1967 onward that “consolidated Irish political and popular opinion behind the Palestinian cause,” author and historian Seán Gannon told CNN.

During and after the 30 years of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, known as the Troubles, the Palestinians’ struggle for liberation was seen by its residents through the prism of their own conflict. Republican Irish nationalists, campaigning to split from the UK, generally sympathized with Palestinians. British loyalists and unionists in Northern Ireland typically sided with Israel.

In 1980, the Republic of Ireland became the first European Union member to declare a need for an independent Palestinian state and has since pushed for a two-state solution. The Irish government describes peace in the Middle East as a “key foreign policy priority” and blames Israeli policies for “making peace more and more difficult to achieve.”

A man walks past graffiti reading ‘Free Palestine’, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Dublin, Ireland, November 15. Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters

Palestinians a ‘domestic issue’ in Ireland

Ireland consistently criticized Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza before the Hamas attacks on October 7, and since then, politicians and the public have expressed concern over what has been largely viewed as a heavy-handed Israeli response.

Simon Harris, the country’s new prime minister, is unlikely to take a softer stance. Ireland’s youngest-ever leader highlighted the impact of the war on children in a speech to parliament in November, remarking: “You cannot build peace on the mass graves of children.”

A feared girld passing through a destryed area in Gaza after Israeli bombing

A galvanize population

Public support for the Palestinians has been put on display during nationwide demonstrations that have been held in cities and towns across Ireland since the Gaza war began.

“Our experience of the peace process and our experience of the importance of international solidarity and interventions has made us acutely aware that this isn’t something we can just sit back and watch on our TV screens,” said Carthy.

“I do not think it is appropriate that a country like Ireland would have diplomatic relations with the State of Israel as it would with other states that aren’t in gross violation of international law,” he added. “And I think it would be a meaningful measure that the Irish government could take to expel the Israeli ambassador until the onslaught on Gaza is ended.”

-CNN