By Caroline Hurley
Eloquent enforced absences
The evening opened sombrely: the organisers, Cloughjordan Arts and Cloughjordan Palestine Justice informed the assembled crowd, nearly a hundred strong, that Abubaker Abed, the 22-year-old Gazan journalist who had only recently escaped the besieged enclave, would not be attending. His absence, however, was eloquent. News had just reached him of another death within his already devastated family—who remain trapped in Gaza, having already lost forty members to Israel’s annihilating assault.
At a previous event, Abubaker had spoken with searing candour about the experience of hunger—not in the abstract, but as endured by himself and witnessed in those he loves. Once destined for a career as a sports commentator, he was drawn inexorably into the theatre of war, compelled to bear witness to horror. His reporting soon attracted the ire of Israeli authorities who warned that his work was becoming “troublesome”; targeted and threatened, he fled. The entry fees and donations from the event were dedicated to supporting him.
A musical performance by members of the Lajee cultural tour from the Ayda Refugee Camp in Bethlehem had also been planned, but the now-familiar obstacle of delayed visas rendered their presence impossible. In their absence, a candle was lit, and the room fell into a moment of mindful silence—an act of collective mourning and solidarity.
The machinery of dispossession in the West Bank
An update was shared on the ongoing wave of evictions and systematic land theft in the West Bank. The tactics of displacement were laid bare: obstruction of harvests, mass sackings, and bureaucratic sabotage that forces Palestinians to complete Kafkaesque documentation in order to prove ownership of their own homes. Access to neighbourhoods is denied through strategically placed street gates; arbitrary detentions proliferate. At the heart of these efforts lies a relentless Israeli ambition to seize full control over Land Registry Area C.
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Since June, under what can only be described as an imposed lockdown, over 40,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced in just 100 days. One fifth of the West Bank is now designated a military firing zone. Amid this devastation, one beacon of practical resistance remains the Union of Agriculture Workers Committee (UAWC). Trusted by both sides, though not unscathed — their seed bank was damaged in a bombing — UAWC personnel continue to provide water, food, shelter, and building materials to those in greatest need.
The international solidarity movement (see: International Solidarity Movement) has witnessed a recent resurgence, particularly across social media platforms. Its Irish counterpart, Pals for Palestine (Pals for Palestine Ireland), has emerged as a growing force.
Audrey Kissane: mainstream media’s complicity
Audrey Kissane took to the floor with quiet force, introduced as a rare voice in Irish journalism—one unafraid to expose the complicity of mainstream media, not through overt distortion, but by the more insidious method of silence.
An independent journalist and media reform advocate, Kissane has garnered wide publication for her work—especially her trenchant critiques of national broadcaster RTÉ’s reporting on Palestine. Her talk was titled with sharp irony: ‘RTÉ: Covering Genocide or Covering Up?’.
Kissane’s central contention was stark: in its quest for “balance,” RTÉ has deliberately downplayed the scale of overwhelmingly one-sided Israeli violence. Journalism, she argued, must be the vanguard of truth — not its obfuscation. While even figures like Taoiseach Micheál Martin have acknowledged the likelihood of genocide, RTÉ continues to equivocate, lagging behind even traditionally cautious outlets like The New York Times.
She cited mounting evidence—from legal experts, human rights organisations, and damning statements by Israeli officials like Smotrich, Netanyahu, and Ben-Gvir (all now wanted by the ICC). In June 2025, a study linked to Harvard revealed that nearly 400,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been “disappeared” since 7 October 2023 — half of them children. “Framing”, Kissane explained, “erases victims by painting them as Hamas terrorists”.
RTÉ’s editorial loyalties, she argued, appear to lie more with the Israeli narrative and its American backers, such as the CIA, than with international humanitarian law. Worse still, their sources are frequently subject to Israeli military censorship —r estrictions never declared to their audience. Such concealment, she insisted, is not merely dishonest but a betrayal of democratic ideals.
An absence of effective regulatory oversight has allowed these practices to go unchecked. When questioned, Ireland’s media regulator, Coimisiún na Meán, offered only a generic reply claiming such matters were “outside their remit” — an astounding abdication, especially given its European responsibilities.
Kissane condemned the media’s blatant asymmetries in humanisation. Israeli hostages are afforded detailed, empathetic coverage—names, familial context, psychological insights — while Palestinian detainees are rendered faceless, often not even named, and rarely acknowledged as victims of arbitrary detention. The United Nations, she noted, has sounded the alarm on a new Israeli law allowing life sentences for children as young as twelve.
Such normalisation of propaganda, Kissane warned, constitutes a crisis of democratic representation. “What should be a critical inflexion point for Ireland is largely ignored”.
She referenced The Ditch’s reporting on Israeli intelligence operatives such as Inbal Goldberger and their secretive meetings with Irish ministers, including Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, where strategies were discussed for incorporating the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism into the regulation of international tech companies operating in Ireland. Micheál Martin’s dismissive reaction to The Ditch — a well-regarded independent outlet — was symptomatic of a broader tactic: to frame transparency seekers as “bullies”, a rhetorical sleight-of-hand bordering on corruption.
Goldberger’s influence reportedly extends to the review of Irish school textbooks, urging that narratives of oppression be softened to serve future pro-Israeli historiography. The Chair of the Jewish Representative Council, Maurice Cohen, is likewise a regular figure in hate-speech discussions, including in relation to the Occupied Territories Bill.
Despite frequent accusations of anti-Israel bias by Ambassador Dana Erlich, Kissane reminded the audience that President Michael D Higgins has publicly refuted the claim that Ireland has a problem with antisemitism. The IHRA definition adopted recently by this government, she warned, dangerously discourages accurate references to Israeli aggression.
RTÉ’s coverage, like that of most mainstream outlets, adheres to a rigid formula: every report on Gaza is prefaced with a paragraph about 7 October, portraying Hamas as terrorist aggressors. The long, bloody history of occupation is omitted. The result is a dangerously misleading image of symmetry between oppressor and oppressed.
As Save the Children noted, even before October 7, 2023 had already been the deadliest year on record for Palestinian children in the West Bank. Yet the dominant narrative continues to present the far better-armed IDF as victims of “armed Palestinians”.
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The BBC, too, has been deeply implicated. Owen Jones has documented how Israeli sympathisers like Raffi Berg, Middle East Editor at the BBC since 2013, hold senior editorial positions within that institution.
A recent Reuters poll claimed fully 70% of Irish people still trust RTÉ and other mainstream outlets. Kissane expressed concern that such trust is misplaced. Young people, more digitally native, have begun shifting toward social media sources — though these too are under threat from regulatory crackdowns such as the UK’s Online Safety Act.
Independent journalism, despite marginalisation, still lands punches. The Ditch’s revelations about Ireland’s export of dual-use components to Israel after October 7, and Daragh Cogley’s exposure in Counterpunch of Ireland as Israel’s second-largest market for high-tech firms, caused ripples even in establishment media. Many of these firms are US-owned, suggesting that Israeli influence is increasingly entwined with American corporate dominance.
The economic stakes are immense. Independent voices like Chris Hedges, who was deplatformed by YouTube in 2022, face systemic exclusion. But they persist, motivated not by profit or career, but by moral urgency. As Kissane put it, “When state media closely covers, and covers for, state policies, the deficit created injures public representation, and democracy”.
She ended her presentation with a citation from British-Jewish actress Miriam Margolyes, whose candid remarks on Gaza scandalised mainstream commentators: “The terrible thing I have to face is that Hitler won. He changed us. He made us like him.” While media elites condemned her, many ordinary people recognised the raw truth and moral courage of her words.
Pals for Palestine
The final speaker was Sarah from Pals for Palestine, a grassroots initiative founded by Kate O’Dwyer, who began attending protests alone and sought to form a community of solidarity. The group now comprises over 300 members and communicates primarily via Instagram, fostering a sense of shared purpose and mutual empowerment.
Among their contributions are two research reports that informed the evening’s discussion:
- Retrospective Assessment of RTÉ’s Online Reporting on Detainee Releases (Oct 2023–Feb 2025)
- Analysis of RTÉ’s Coverage in Light of the ICJ and ICC Rulings (2024)
Conclusion
The audience was thanked and encouraged to stay engaged by connecting with local activist networks. It was stated that the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign remains a vital hub of information and co-ordination.
Sample List of Independent Media 2025
