Bríd Cannon

Lawyer and musician. Views are personal

[Bríd Cannon @Little_Cannon]

@elonmusk How? What's your plan to return funds to citizens and health care?

[Bríd Cannon @Little_Cannon]

@PressSec @elonmusk Your administration and its supporters (including @MarkZuckss) speak of the importance of free speech, yet you are removing independent selection of journalistic access to @WhiteHouse ? Keep speaking out of the two sides of your mouth.

[Bríd Cannon @Little_Cannon]

@PressSec @elonmusk So, I'm assuming that when the White House selects journalists in future, it will also allow access to outlets and journalists with a track record of holding @POTUS to account and not being afraid to criticise the administration openly and fairly?

[Bríd Cannon @Little_Cannon]

@elonmusk Please can you provide us with independently verified evidence that these figures you quote are correct

[Amnesty Ireland @AmnestyIreland]

What is a special relationship with the US President worth if our Taoiseach does not, today, demand immediate suspension of arms transfers to Israel and an immediate and permanent ceasefire? @SimonHarrisTD and @POTUS

[Jonathan Cook @Jonathan_K_Cook]

UNRWA is separate from the UN’s main refugee agency, the UNHCR, and deals only with Palestinian refugees.

Although Israel does not want you to know it, the reason for there being two UN refugee agencies is because Israel and its western backers insisted on the division back in 1948.

Why? Because Israel was afraid of the Palestinians falling under the responsibility of the UNHCR’s forerunner, the International Refugee Organisation. The IRO was established in the immediate wake of the Second World War in large part to cope with the millions of European Jews fleeing Nazi atrocities.

Israel did not want the two cases treated as comparable, because it was pushing hard for Jewish refugees to be settled on lands from which it had just expelled Palestinians. Part of the IRO’s mission was to seek the repatriation of European Jews. Israel was worried that very principle might be used both to deny it the Jews it wanted to colonise Palestinian land and to force it to allow the Palestinian refugees to return to their former homes.

So in a real sense, UNRWA is Israel’s creature: it was set up to keep the Palestinians a case apart, an anomaly...

Israel’s efforts to get rid of UNRWA are not new. They date back many years. For a number of reasons, the UN refugee agency is a thorn in Israel’s side – and all the more so in Gaza.

Not least, it has provided a lifeline to Palestinians there, keeping them fed and cared for, and providing jobs to many thousands of local people in a place where unemployment rates are among the highest in the world.

It has invested in infrastructure like hospitals and schools that make life in Gaza more bearable, when Israel’s goal has long been to make the enclave uninhabitable.

UNRWA’s well-run schools, staffed by local Palestinians, teach the children their own history, about where their grandparents once lived, and of Israel’s campaign of dispossession and ethnic cleansing against them. That runs directly counter to the infamous Zionist slogan about the Palestinians’ identity-less future: “The old will die and the young forget.”

But UNRWA’s role is bigger than that. Uniquely, it is the sole agency unifying Palestinians wherever they live, even when they are separated by national borders and Israel’s fragmentation of the territory it controls.

UNRWA brings Palestinians together even when their own political leaders have been manipulated into endless factionalism by Israel’s divide and rule policies: Hamas is nominally in charge in Gaza, while Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah pretends to run the West Bank.

In addition, UNRWA keeps alive the moral case for a Palestinian right of return – a principle recognised in international law but long ago abandoned by western states.

Even before October 7, UNRWA had become an obstable that needed removing if Israel was ever to ethnically cleanse Gaza. That is why Israel has repeatedly lobbied to stop the biggest donors, especially the US, funding UNRWA.

Back in 2018, for example, the refugee agency was plunged into an existential crisis when President Donald Trump acquiesced to Israeli pressure and cut all its funding. Even after the decision was reversed, the agency has been limping along financially.

You can read more from my latest article In waging war on the UN refugee agency, the West is openly siding with Israeli genocide here:
https://t.co/31iUb2ZLUd

[Bríd Cannon @Little_Cannon]

@RishiSunak Are you seriously saying this is a positive step @RishiSunak ? What about the great marketplace of ideas that is now all the poorer due to preventing talent from coming to the UK because of this?

[Brian Killoran @BriKi]

Employers in Dublin, let your staff who are from a migrant background go home now - close up - help them get home safe - the violence in the city centre is incredibly dangerous. Today's incident was horrific, the perpetrator must face the law, but this chaos is inexcusable.

[Bríd Cannon @Little_Cannon]

Thanks @hanszimmer for spending 2,149 minutes with me in 2022. I couldn’t stop listening to Time. #SpotifyWrapped https://t.co/8MvvXAyn9R

[Bríd Cannon @Little_Cannon]

@dublinbusnews I'm still waiting at dun laoghaire terminus for a 46A which was supposed to have left 4 min ago, in the meantime 2 empty buses have driven off?

[Bríd Cannon @Little_Cannon]

When you try and explain to a non -Irish person the cultural phenomenon that is "putting the kettle on".... #kettle #mrsdoyle

[Larry the Cat @Number10cat]

“The King has asked me to become Prime Minister because this nonsense has gone on long enough.”

[Amnesty Ireland @AmnestyIreland]

The systematic attacks on the minority Hazara Shiite community in Afghanistan may amount to crimes against humanity and should be unequivocally condemned.

It is essential that an immediate investigation into the attacks is carried out.

https://t.co/erszOG3GDk

[Bríd Cannon @Little_Cannon]

@IAYOmusic @artscouncil_ie Done :)

[Bríd Cannon @Little_Cannon]

@Colmogorman Very excited for you !

[Bríd Cannon @Little_Cannon]

@buythebook_ie I bought both his books from your site and loved how personal it was, getting books directly from the author. Now I understand and appreciate the full history behind it. Great endeavour, comhgairdeas

[Bríd Cannon @Little_Cannon]

Great coverage on @RTENationwide @RTEOne on @buythebook_ie @RachelDrury17 you are inspiring and may you go far. Also a lovely piece on my late uncle Liam Cahill, brought back childhood memories of "Uncle Liam is on the telly!" Both he and my late aunt Tish are very missed.#rip

[Buy the Book.ie @buythebook_ie]

We are delighted to share the news that Buy the Book will feature on RTE Nationwide on Monday 4th July at 7pm.
We also meet our friend, the late and much loved Liam Cahill, who supported our business since the very beginning ❤️💚❤️
#RTE #RTENationwide #Nationwide #irishauthors

[Bríd Cannon @Little_Cannon]

@PETECROOKS @VirtualTreasury @PETECROOKS @VirtualTreasury such an amazing achievement and a blueprint for all counties whose archives have been destroyed through conflict..a major historical event. #comhgairdeas well done!

[JOE DUFFY @talktojoeduffy]

I think Liams last appearance on national radio was Dec 23rd ‘21 on ⁦@rteliveline⁩..
he spoke about his Last book .From Suir to Jarama, Mossie Quinlan’s Life and Legacy..a brilliant,fair ,noble ,decent and well read journalist and historian .RIP https://t.co/h3fSjIOZym