Palestinian 'Stall with the Wall' street theatre in Wexford’s Bullring

People walking into Wexford town’s iconic bullring today found themselves face to face with sirens, a scale model of the West Bank wall and armed Israeli soldiers manning a menacing checkpoint. Luckily it was only part of a street theatre event organised by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) to highlight awareness of the day to day horrors being endured by the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation. Well known Wexford human rights campaigner and Sinn Féin rep. Ger Barron said the event was also organised to highlight “the shameful role of Irish cement multinational CRH plc in Israel’s occupation.”

“The IPSC are staging the ‘Israeli Checkpoint Bethlehem’ street theatre event across the country to highlight the routine difficulties and restrictions on freedom of movement faced by people in the occupied Palestinian territories as they attempt to go about their daily lives,” Mr Barron said. “One and half million Palestinians are currently ‘locked in’ in Gaza, imprisoned in their own country. 65% of them live in poverty while 52% are at risk of hunger.”

“Their day to day lives are even further complicated by the grid of checkpoints that they must pass through each day. At these checkpoints, Palestinians are routinely humiliated, beaten and even killed. This is the day to day horror that they must endure and that we have tried to bring to life in Wexford with this street theatre.”

“It is also necessary to highlight the role that an Irish multinational company is playing in the suffering of the Palestinian people. Irish cement multinational CRH plc is profiteering in Palestine through the sale of cement used for the construction of the Separation Wall and the illegal settlements in the West Bank. At a recent tribunal, leading human rights barrister Michael Mansfield concluded that the conduct of CRH in occupied Palestine was ‘morally reprehensible and exposes the company to legal liability for these violations.’ CRH are currently under investigation by the OECD for alleged complicity with Israel’s violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law.”