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'I just don't agree with what's happening' - Gordon D'Arcy's support for Gaza

The international centre wants Ireland to show solidarity with the people of Gaza.

AFTER TAKING PART in the Gaza protests in Dublin last weekend, Ireland international Gordon D’Arcy says the Irish government could be putting more pressure on Israel.

The Leinster centre is not the only rugby figure to have marched in solidarity with the people of Gaza, as former Ireland second row Trevor Hogan was also photographed at the protests.

Popular Dublin restaurant The Exchequer – which is co-owned by D’Arcy – last weekend announced that it had decided to no longer stock Israeli goods. The business, which has outlets in Dublin city centre and Ranelagh, took to Facebook to call for a boycott of Israeli products.

Speaking at Leinster’s UCD headquarters this afternoon as the province launched their new European jersey, 78-times capped D’Arcy explained why he had put his support behind the people of Gaza.

Because there are people dying in Gaza and the whole situation there, I just don’t agree with what’s happening. What we wrote on our Facebook page with the Exchequer, war crimes, effectively genocide, and all these things that are happening in that part of the world.

“We can’t actively go and do anything about it, but we can say ‘I don’t believe what’s happening is right’ and try to put a bit of pressure on our government to make some sort of stance and just show a bit of solidarity with the people of Gaza.

“That’s the most important thing, the people of Gaza and they’re the ones who are unfortunately the ones who are feeling the brunt of what’s happening. They are literally caught in the middle of a horrible, horrible worldwide tragedy that nobody seems to be doing anything about.”

[image alt="Gaza" src="http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2014/08/gaza-6.png" width="493" height="474" credit-url="https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Ftheexchequerdublin2%3Ffref%3Dts" credit-source="TheExchequer%2FFacebook" class="aligncenter" /end]

Asked whether he believed Ireland could be putting more pressure on Israel, D’Arcy responded:

I think we could… again, I don’t expect them to be… we are a neutral country. But there are elements where we could be putting pressure, our government could be putting pressure on the Israeli ambassador and as a country, we could be putting more pressure on people.

“Probably what we’re hoping for – the government aren’t going to listen to 2,000 people. There’s a big march this weekend and hopefully we get good numbers out for that.

“The Irish people make a little bit of an effort and, as we say to boycott some Israeli goods and make it known that Irish people don’t stand for this kind of thing either.”

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