June 18 2026 - 2:50pm
The Irish novelist Sally Rooney has claimed that the Israeli government is responsible for the rise of fascism in modern Europe.
Speaking at a Palestine solidarity event in Dublin on Tuesday evening, the Normal People author argued that “Israeli settler-colonial techniques have been inherited and refined from the practices of British and European colonialism.” She added that “the political classes in Europe today are cooperating with and learning from the US and Israeli regimes,” and that “far-Right, fascist movements [are] rising to power as a result.”
Pointing to “the perhaps irreversible damage the Israeli state has by now inflicted on the foundations of international law and the multilateral world system”, Rooney told the Dublin audience that European leaders have consequently “torn international law to shreds” and “made a mockery of their own voters” in supporting Israel’s war in Gaza. Labeling the Israeli campaign “the darkest [moment] that we have experienced in our lifetimes”, she claimed: “We are watching the world’s richest and most powerful nations facilitate an undisguised genocide.”
Rooney, who has written four novels, has consistently referred to Israeli action in Gaza as a “genocide”, including during a lecture given at London’s Southbank Center in 2024. At this week’s event in Dublin, she said that “the last three years have revealed more clearly than ever the extent to which the Israeli state functions as a projection of US power.” She added: “Foreign aid, weaponry, and military intelligence have flowed from wealthy Western nations into Israel, facilitating and supporting the mass killings of Palestinians.”
The author has previously declared her support for Palestine Action, whose proscription as a terrorist group was upheld by the Court of Appeal earlier this week. On Tuesday evening, she attacked “the radical and unprecedented criminalization of protest in nations like the UK […] including the designation of protesters as terrorists”, adding that “mainstream political parties are increasingly adopting authoritarian and fascist techniques to suppress protest and protect colonial interests.”
“Many of our old familiar methods of protest and dissent have by now proven completely inadequate to the challenge before us,” Rooney said at the Dublin event. “Many millions of us have tried taking to the streets, signing petitions, writing articles, emailing our representatives, and it is past time to accept that those tactics on their own have not worked.” In her view, “it is not enough for us as members of the public simply to know the facts, to sit at home, reading the news and shaking our heads in dismay.”
Rooney appeared at the meeting alongside Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed, who now lives in Britain and who has previously described the October 7 attacks as “a great day”. According to figures from the International Federation of Journalists, at least 235 Palestinian reporters and media workers have been killed since the beginning of the Gaza war in 2023. The Irish writer highlighted these deaths, saying: “If we are to do justice to the bravery of those journalists who risk their lives to tell us the truth, then we have to stand up and take action.”
Rooney’s first two novels were translated into Hebrew by Israeli publisher Modan. In 2021 she refused to allow Modan to translate her third novel Beautiful World, Where Are You, citing her support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. Last month, November Books — an independent, pro-Palestinian publisher in Israel — announced that it would publish a Hebrew translation of Rooney’s fourth novel, Intermezzo. In response, prominent pro-Palestinian activists including the writer Mohammed el-Kurd criticized Rooney for “creating loopholes to bypass sanctions”.
On Tuesday, Rooney claimed that “the truth of the world we live in, the logic of our civilization today, is there in the rubble of Gaza and, as we know all too well, the state of Israel has not and could not have conducted this campaign of genocide alone.” She added: “The liberation of Palestine really does represent the liberation of the world.”
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