The ballad "The West’s Awake" is based on a poem by Thomas Davis, a Protestant Irish freedom fighter, that laments Ireland’s plight, focusing on how Connacht, Ireland’s western province, remained passive amid the brutality of British rule. Davis questions how, given its glorious rebellious past, such a proud place could be so quiet, asking how, "When all beside a vigil keep, The West's asleep, the West's asleep."
Over the three years of Israel’s continuing widely perceived genocide in Palestine, I’ve used that lament over our institutional support of and public indifference to the determination of the state of Israel to wipe Palestine off the map.
My first book, "Catastrophe, Nakba II," has a section "The West’s Asleep," where I reference the problem. It was alarming to watch the ease with which - in the face of overwhelming evidence that Israel was conducting a genocide - so much of the Western world contorted itself to appear "concerned" for Palestinians without "upsetting" Israel.
The twelve months between October 7th 2023 and 2024 was like one long camera roll of distressing images of the untold suffering of the children, women and men of Gaza, [and] the increased level of land theft that communities in the West Bank experienced.
This could not have happened without the direct support of the United States and other Western powers. The pursuit of Israel’s leaders to face the rigors of international criminal prosecution for war crimes must be accompanied by one for those who enabled them in their murderous intent. Three years on, the West still watches on as Israel continues its campaign to destroy Palestine. No government, no political leader, can credibly claim they didn’t know that their support was critical to Israel’s intent.
The United States has provided Israel with in excess of $20 billion in armaments. Still, its two dates, two speeches, and the behaviour of two legislative bodies demonstrate just how committed it is to Israel’s genocide. The 25 July 2024, when Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the Joint Houses in Washington and 13 October 2025, when Donald Trump addressed the Knesset in Jerusalem, are critical to an understanding of America’s sponsorship of Israel’s actions.
In "Catastrophe Nakba II" I write that on July 25th 2024, "the legislature of the United States, representing its more than 330 million citizens took to its institutional bosom the words and the actions of a man who, the world’s leading adjudicators of law and order - the ICC and the UN - had both, however powerless they may ultimately be, profiled as the leader of a nation embarked on a genocidal mission."
It was the day the United States walked over the remains of tens of thousands of dead Palestinians, the killing of whom it enabled. The majority of those elected to represent all Americans stood as one to back Netanyahu’s ongoing savagery. After the Hamas attack, President Joe Biden had promised "unprecedented support." Eight months later, he and his officials knew Israel had abused that commitment and was pursuing a genocide. Despite the overwhelming evidence, Biden refused to act, angrily dismissing the ICC’s findings. Worse, he, Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken arrogantly ignored the independent testimony of a group of U.S. medics who had volunteered in Gaza.
On the same day as Netanyahu’s address, forty-five American doctors and nurses wrote to the President saying what they witnessed was a genocide. They were unequivocal, yet even their first-hand account was dismissed.
Even when the overwhelming evidence of U.S.-backed Israel committing war crimes came from American medical professionals, the administration refused to give it credence. The letter provided shocking first-hand evidence of a completely overwhelmed health service, of extreme cruelty to women and children, including accounts of treating children who had been shot in the head.
The letter said Israel had killed one out of every 40 Gazan healthcare professionals while the rest were malnourished, physically and mentally devastated. "Far too many of our healthcare colleagues told us they were simply waiting to die. We urge you to see how Israel has directly targeted and deliberately devastated Gaza’s entire healthcare system. This makes a mockery of the protected status hospitals and healthcare providers are granted under the oldest and most widely accepted provisions of International Humanitarian Law."
This powerful testimony was filed away and ignored, as Netanyahu was treated to a standing ovation on Capitol Hill and later to a private meeting with Kamala Harris. In "Catastrophe Nakba II" I write that the events of that day, ten months into a genocide that continues today, were as bleak as any in the eight-decade-long relationship of fealty of America to Israel.
In "Genocide, Sponsoring the Destruction of Palestine," I focus on events fifteen months later, 13 October 2025, when Donald Trump unveils his faux peace plan to Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. There was, and there is, no peace, no ceasefire. Today, another ten months on, the killing continues. Israel’s aggression in Lebanon and the West Bank has escalated, while in Gaza the "reduced fire" only means fewer being killed as hundreds of bodies are pulled from the 60-plus million tonnes of rubble. It is as much America’s killing fields as it is Israel’s.
No U.S. President has come even close to handling Israel correctly since its foundation in 1948. Those, like Clinton and Obama who are deified in Ireland often escape criticism of egregious failures. Joe Biden, another beloved "son" of Ireland, faces a charge sheet on the continuing genocide that’s as serious as Donald Trump’s.
Still, the current president's brazenness is breathtaking. In his 13 October speech to the Knesset, which lasted one hour and four minutes, he set out a business plan for the region that would enrich America, Israel, some of the Arab world’s wealthiest nations, and his own family.
In doing so he congratulated Benjamin Netanyahu on what he had achieved. "You look at a map, even, of just not the world, the Middle East, and you have this little dot. And think of what you’ve done; it’s incredible. It’s incredible. But the world is loving Israel again … the world wanted peace, and Israel wanted peace. Everybody did. Everybody did. And what a victory it’s been, right?"
Three times in his speech Trump suggested Israel should "celebrate" what it had achieved.
It should never be forgotten that, on that Monday in October, as a genocide sponsored by the United States continued, its president told Israel that it should proceed to "enjoy" the benefits of the "war" that it had just "won." There was, in the nine thousand words he delivered, one reference to the Palestinians: that if they were peaceful they could "return to enjoy the basics of life."
Two men devoid of principle or conscience glorified the prospect of transforming the wasteland their countries had made of Palestine into a global idyll, while those whose land it is should be happy with the scraps.
What were Palestinian hearts to do but drop in despondency at the callousness of a U.S. president congratulating the prime minister of their oppressor on a "victory"? What were young Palestinians to make of a U.S. president addressing a political leader indicted for war crimes and telling him he had won? What were Hamas fighters to do when the self-proclaimed leader of the free world said that Israelis should enjoy themselves and become stronger and better than ever?
We’ve long known that Israel can act with impunity, but never has it taken that leverage as far as it has since October 2023. Its complete impunity needs to be undone; without that, Palestine’s fate will not change. Only a Palestine-oriented U.S. administration can shift the Western mindset to the point that Thomas Davis intoned for Ireland, generations ago,
"But, hark! Some voice like thunder spake: The West's awake! The West's awake!"
"Genocide - Sponsoring the Destruction of Palestine" (Merrion Press www.merrionpress.ie) is available in all good bookstores and from online sellers.
Fintan Drury, an Irish writer and activist, has just published his second of two books (both published by Merrion Press) on Israel’s actions against Palestine. Drury was a journalist with RTE in the 1980s before spending three decades in business. In 2016, he returned to journalism and wrote extensively on migration and gambling reform. His 2025 book, "Catastrophe Nakba II," was a critically acclaimed bestseller and was shortlisted for Irish Non-Fiction Book of the Year. The Irish Times said "Genocide, Sponsoring the Destruction of Palestine," "lays bare the reasoning behind the carnage and points the finger at those responsible."
