Mary Lou McDonald's recent comments in the Dáil on the Hamas attack were the most critical Sinn Féin has made to date on the group, raising questions around whether this is another example of the party moderating a position in preparation for government.
In June 2020, as the country prepared to emerge from lockdown, an online event hosted by Sinn Féin attracted a sizeable audience.
Any Palestinian who saw"his land, his olive trees being stolen" would"defend himself by all means" and using"any tools – any tools – to resist these plans," he warned."You cannot expect any quietness," he added. The previous day, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald, who just three years ago introduced the event at which Dr Naim spoke, was on RTÉ’s News at One describing the Hamas attack as"truly horrific" and condemning outright the targeting of civilians and the taking of hostages.
The Sinn Féin leader’s comments marked a hardening of the position taken just days earlier when the party’s Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Matt Carthy stopped short of explicitly condemning the Hamas attack, saying that both the attacks by Hamas against Israeli civilians and the Israeli bombardment of Gaza must stop immediately.
Ms McDonald’s outright condemnation of Hamas also put her at odds with many of her party’s representatives, not least her predecessor Gerry Adams, who tweeted:"All those who are decrying today’s terrible events in the Middle East, including the Irish Government, should organise an international intervention to establish a proper negotiating process."
As recently as last summer, Ms McDonald cited"challenging the apartheid regime" in Israel as one of her top three priorities in foreign policy if she gets into government. He said:"Sinn Féin will always condemn something that is completely unacceptable, and what Hamas did is completely horrendous and has unleashed something even worse."Professor of Politics at DCU Donnacha Ó Beacháin believes Sinn Féin has had to"refine" some aspects of its foreign policy as the prospect of government becomes more likely.
But that all changed with the invasion of Ukraine when the party deleted thousands of statements from its website saying they were"out of date". Sinn Féin previously left itself open to accusations of being unfit for office after the attendance of some of its representatives to the inauguration of Nicolas Maduro as president of Venezuela in 2019.
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