Arabic version: احتجاجات إيرلندية مرتقبة ضد زيارة ترامب

According to Al Jazeera, US President Donald Trump is set to arrive in Ireland on Saturday, where planned demonstrations will highlight anger over US policies and Israel’s actions in Palestine. A Sunday Independent and Ireland Thinks poll found that 69 percent of respondents did not support his visit.

Protests are planned across Ireland, including at Dublin’s Garden of Remembrance. The demonstration there is organised by the Irish Neutrality League with the Irish Anti-War Movement and Tonn na Cle. It has been endorsed by Sinn Fein, the Social Democrats, Labour, People Before Profit-Solidarity and the Green Party.

Sean Radcliffe, a Trinity College Dublin student and leader in the student body’s Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign, said thousands would march because they refused to “normalise a man who has facilitated genocide”. Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said she hoped President Catherine Connolly would raise the “ongoing facilitation of a genocide in Gaza”.

Trump is expected to meet Taoiseach Micheal Martin, Connolly and the US ambassador to Ireland. About 4,000 security personnel, including roughly 1,000 US Secret Service agents, are expected to be enlisted during the visit. Phoenix Park will temporarily close before Trump is expected to attend the Irish Open golf tournament in Doonbeg, where he owns a resort.

Stephanie Dornschneider-Elkink of University College Dublin said Ireland was aligned “in spirit and policy-wise” with Palestinians, while noting the country’s economic relationship with the United States. Ireland has been among the West’s most vocal critics of Israel and was the first European Union country to ban imports from illegal Israeli settlements.