Member's statement: Pro-Palestine Activists
Member's statement by Mr Gerry Carroll on .
- MLA
- Mr Gerry Carroll
- Party at the time
- People Before Profit Alliance
- Date
- 17 September 2024
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Pro-Palestine Activists
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4536839
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I commend the recent work of pro-Palestine activists across the country who have taken action to say that we should not normalise apartheid and genocide. In recent days, that action was targeted on the US company Red Hat, which has strong connections with the Israeli military and the Israeli occupation. Despite all the attempts on this island and across the world to mischaracterise the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, the actions with regard to Red Hat show what the movement is all about: at its heart, it is a peace, justice and solidarity movement. In the face of GAA upper management wanting to put their heads in the sand in the hope that they could get away with hosting that company, activists, importantly, got organised online and out in the street outside places like Casement Park in my constituency. I commend the activists in the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC), Gaels Against Genocide and every individual and organisation who came out to take a stand against the company. There must not and cannot be business as usual for companies that profit while they are connected to the Israeli war machine, with its ongoing killing and slaughter. More important than ever, we need to keep up our activism as we approach a year of the genocide and scholasticide. Despite the brutality of the war launched by Israel and, as reported by 'The Lancet', the estimated 186,000 people killed, Palestinians will not disappear. The Zionist project is fracturing as the myth of Israel being a liberal democracy has been exposed as a lie in front of the whole world. UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese rightly said:
"It is unavoidable for Israel to become a pariah".
Our job in Ireland is to say that loud and clear and to expose the true nature of the apartheid state and its war machine. My message to the activists is this: keep being active, keep marching and keep protesting until Palestine is free.
328 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.30 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- The text adopts the identity-based framing in its own voice (0.55).
- Subject area: Another identity-related subject.
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.48 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.29 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.05 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.23 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.40 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.12 | No |
| Overall judgement | 0.30 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing | 0.40 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.05 |
| Adopts it (chosen) | 0.55 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Another identity-related subject | 0.31 |
| Immigration, asylum, race, ethnicity and Travellers | 0.22 |
| Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice) | 0.20 |
| Sport (including the GAA), the arts and cultural bodies | 0.19 |
| Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations | 0.04 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:06 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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