The Canary recently spoke to Irish satirist and pro-Palestine activist Tadhg Hickey, as he faces further pushback from the pro-Israel lobby. His YouTube channel has been taken down, apparently for “endorsing criminal organisations”.
Hickey has long maintained his public support for the right of resistance, which is a legal right enshrined under international law, for a captive or occupied population to resist their occupier. Within this crucial tenet of international law, occupied people have an inherent legal right to resist using force and have the right to bear arms.
It then follows, of course, that support for resistance is absolutely in line with international law, yet governments, institutions and organisations continue to censor and punish this critical act of solidarity with the Palestinian people.
As Hickey discussed in his interview with The Canary, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has issued provisional measures in the genocide case concerning Israel’s conduct in Gaza, while the International Criminal Court (ICC) has separately issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant over war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Against this cynical backdrop, Hickey argues that it is striking that a satirical comic faces censorship while figures like Netanyahu and far-right agitator Tommy Robinson remain unfettered across YouTube and social media platforms.
Hickey faces mass-reporting campaigns by Zionist groups and influencers
When he was asked about the Zionist and pro-Israel campaign being waged against him, Hickey told us:
Yeah, so I have had, my Instagram has been taken down a few months ago. I’ve been banned from TikTok and I often have people on the inside, you know, so I have somebody on the inside letting me know that I’m being mass reported by Zionist groups or particular Zionist influencers.
So, you get the sense, you know, you’re emailed to say that they’ve taken down your account to protect the community because you have been endorsing criminal organisations or terrorist organisations or something to that effect.
So, it’s just kind of laughable in a way because two things.
One, you don’t protect the community by censoring voices within the YouTube community that are pushing back against institutions of power. So that’s ludicrous in itself.
You’re not protecting the community, you’re responding to a campaign by Zionist voices; I can imagine it’s the two or three people who’ve been on my case in some cases for years, even before October 7th.
He then pointed out how effective pro-Israel and Zionist voices have been in shutting down the free speech of pro-Palestine activists:
So, these people are drunk on their own influence. They’re drunk on their own impunity and they don’t like what I’m saying about their precious state in West Asia. So they go to YouTube and tell tales on me and try to get my account shut down.
And I suppose what I’ve changed a little bit, in terms of tack, when my Instagram was taken down, I kind of took it on the chin a little bit and I kind of thought, look, this is not the biggest thing that’s going on in the world right now, namely the slaughter and the genocide goes on in the Levant, so I should shut my mouth about my stupid Instagram page.
But actually, that’s what the Zionists want you to do. They want us all to be isolated. They want all our accounts to be taken down. They want us to be unable to provide for our families. I mean, this is this is really dark stuff, but this is where they’re going, that they’re trying to ruin me as well as silence my voice.
And so I think then you’ve got two choices. One, you can accept that and say, OK, I got involved in the pro-Palestine movement and I knew there were going to be repercussions.
Or you can say, fuck that. I’m fighting back against this shit. We’re in the right. Those big corporations are supporting a genocide. They’re carrying water for the genocidaires. We’re in the right – we should push back when we’re in the right.
“Resistance is enshrined in International law”
So, what do you see going forward? You’re going to carry on and carry on pushing back. And what would you call out to other people that maybe have been silent until now?
Yeah, so I mean, two quick things. One, just on the… because you make such a great point, like, resistance is enshrined in international law. So I would never bow down from saying that I support resistance 100%.
If I didn’t support resistance, I wouldn’t support the partial liberation of my own country from British imperialism. So that would be a mad thing for an Irish person to say that they don’t support resistance.
Also, though, I’m not an idiot. So, I haven’t been on YouTube saying… “Hamas are great, have you considered applying to join them?” Like I’m not mentioning any of the proscribed groups, I’m playing the game. So that’s why there’s literally no foundation at all to the charges that I’m supporting terrorist groups or whatnot.
But what I say to people is, you know, don’t do what I did the last time around with my Instagram account and say, “oh, OK, this is the price that you have to pay. And it’s a cruel world.”
Let’s fight back and stay unified, because what Zionists love is they love you isolated. This has happened to a few sorts of big pro-Palestine voices online I’ve seen. And if the pro-Palestine movement kicks up enough of a fuss, YouTube usually cower then and they reinstate the page. And unfortunately, that’s the way that cowards work.
We have to force the cowards to do the right thing because they’ll never do the right thing because it’s morally the right thing to do.
Hickey then appealed to activists who have been censored or sidelined as a result of speaking up to defend International law and the right of Palestinians to resist their occupying oppressor, Israel:
So, we need to fight back. We have to stop this mentality that we’re all cancelled and we’re over in the corner. We have to force these institutions, these genocide complicit institutions to do the right thing.
And if they won’t, then it’s going to hurt them in their pocket – the only way that they understand. We force these big institutions to do the right thing. And then we build our own institutions as well.
I don’t think there’s any more playing nice guy with the people who are supporting, aiding and abetting a genocide. We have to fight back and we have to fight back hard and right now.
Zionists are “drunk on their own impunity”, says Tadhg Hickey
Asked about whether there was anything which prompted YouTube to make such a deplorable decision to censor Hickey, and whether recently posting a video with the widely popular Greta Thunberg had any impact:
I mean, maybe, like somebody made the point yesterday, one of the last pieces of satire I did on the page before the page was taken down was I did a roast on Rabbi Shmuley. And he does strike me as a type of person who’s vindictive enough to go after my personal YouTube page.
That’s not apportioning any blame. And I’m not saying that he did blah, blah, blah. I don’t have the money to go to court with all these people. But I think it’s more a case of – as I was saying earlier – I have enemies, you know, I have big institution enemies.
There was an article about me in the Jewish Chronicle recently and these people, as I say, are so drunk on their own impunity. They have been so privileged for so long that they feel they can just shut people down if they don’t agree with Israel.
And there was a time where they were able to do that. But I feel our movement is so big now. It’s so global. It’s so strong if we do unify that we should be able to push back against these attempts.
So, I don’t feel like it’s anything new that I’ve done, really. I think it’s more a case of I’m on a list. And when some of those Zionist groups feel like it, they target people on their list, and they will continue to do that as long as we allow them to do it.
Hickey then spoke directly to people across the political divide, particularly those on the far-right who have repeatedly insisted that they are defenders of free speech:
And I would also speak to not just people who might look at my stuff or read the Canary, I’d speak to anybody who believes in free speech.
Like if you believe that a fucking comedian from Cork who’s doing mostly satire on the Internet, like I’m not the leader of any military group, should be banned and silenced on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube because I’ve been speaking out against the genocide in the Levant – if you feel that is reasonable – then you don’t believe in free speech at all.
Either free speech is for all of us or it’s for none of us. So, wherever you are in the political spectrum, I would imagine, particularly people on the right, that’s what you’ve been railing against. You’ve been railing against the fact that corporate power or the big institutions don’t allow you to speak your mind. This is exactly what we’re going through right now.
So, I would say stand with us irrespective of what your political persuasion is.
Hickey tells the Greens to “stick to your guns” and oppose Zionism
The Green Party and its members have stood apart from other political parties in calling out Israel and its ongoing genocide being waged on Palestine with impunity. However, recent months have seen anti-Zionist members purged from the party, including Mark Adderley, husband of Loose Women’s Nadia Sawalha.
As a former Green who was systematically pushed out due to my anti-Zionist beliefs, I asked if he had anything he would like to say to Zack Polanski and the Greens today. Referring to the dismantling of the apartheid state in South Africa by Nelson Mandela and the ANC government, Hickey told us:
I suppose my only message for them would be, I feel like everyone has a role to play. So, I spent time with like Mandla Mandela on the flotilla to Gaza, and he was talking about the liberation of South Africa and pushing beyond the apartheid system, breaking down the apartheid system in South Africa.
There was all sorts of ways of doing that: there was the military campaign, there was the political campaign, there was cultural boycotts – everyone has a role to play, so i feel the political sort of system is still one of the most important arenas. I don’t necessarily agree with everything the Green Party are doing, but they’re absolutely moving in the right direction. That’s to be welcomed.
The campaign results in the US recently, I don’t agree with every policy of every winner, you know, in the Democrat Party there. But again, they’re moving in the right direction. These things have to be lauded.
The only message I’d have for the Green Party, not that they would probably listen to me anyways, don’t repeat the mistakes of Labour under Jeremy Corbyn. The moment that you sort of try to court the favor of Zionism, the moment that you give Zionism an inch and legitimize it in any way, shape or form, they will just destroy you anyway.
You might as well stick to your guns. If you really feel that Israel in its current form is an apartheid state, slaughters Palestinians, offers them no hope whatsoever of self-determination. If you feel that way about Israel, then stick to your guns, because trying to meet Zionists halfway, for me, is akin to trying to meet the rulers of apartheid South Africa halfway.
You can’t deal with people like that. That state has to be dismantled. And then we can have a look at what happens to the inhabitants of that land afterwards.
But the state, as it is right now, is an ethno-nationalist state. If that’s what your political belief is, don’t pander.
Hickey then issued a call to action to concerned people across the UK, who refuse to accept that ordinary people are being silenced whilst criminals walk free and are entirely unfettered by the establishment:
I just want to urge people as well to like, you know, advocate for my page to be reinstated, but for all of our pages to be reinstated. Like someone said, oh, are you going to start another page? Are you going to start another Instagram page? Why the fuck should I? I’ve done nothing wrong. I haven’t said anything racist.
Like Tommy Robinson has a fucking YouTube page right now. Benjamin Netanyahu has a YouTube page and an active Instagram page. Are you serious?
We’re living in a world where a satirist who’s doing little bits, as kind of spicy material, is banned across social media. And the leader of the far right in Britain and an absolute out and out war criminal, the Hitler of our times in Benjamin Netanyahu, is active on social media.
That’s a world that’s so upside down you have to fight to turn it up the right way you know
Unlike Israel’s Netanyahu and Gallant, Tadhg Hickey has committed no crime
Ironically, and even more frustratingly, Hickey finished by offering to collaborate on social media with us at the Canary, only to realise that is no longer an option due to the successful punitive campaign by Zionists to shut down advocacy for Palestinians:
It’s happening to people all the time that maybe this might be a moment to try and urge us all to, to kind of unify a little bit more when this happens, that like, they won’t be able to take us down if we’re a stronger unit, you know, so.
I was going to say you can collaborate with me on social media, but I’m banned. I mean, by all means, collaborate with me. But like, unfortunately, there’s no social media platform that I’m still allowed on, except for Facebook, weirdly.
Like, to the best of my knowledge, the ICJ don’t have any sort of interest in me. Like, you know what I mean? Like, they’re not… pinpointing me as a potential war criminal but I’m like absolutely anathema to the social media community guidelines, give me a fucking break, like.
We hope that our readers, and those further afield, take heed of this call and ordinary people come together to demand Hickey’s accounts be reinstated to protect our democratic right to freedom of speech.
Featured image via the Canary
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