It is natural that the public’s attention should, on the anniversary of the barbarous Hamas attack on Israeli men, women and children, refocus on the killing of 1,300 people, and the brutal hostage taking. The unforgivable viciousness of October 7th, 2023 can easily be forgotten in the maelstrom of cruelty that has followed.
About 45,000 Palestinians have perished in the Gaza Strip and on the West Bank, the great majority wholly innocent non-combatants – men, women and children who pose no threat to anyone, and who cannot assist any initiatives for peace.
In addition to the Palestinian dead, few have counted those who have lost limbs, eyesight, sanity, loved ones, families and homes. If, at a crude estimate, there has been two awful life-altering injuries for every death, it is by no means inconceivable that more than 120,000 people have sustained death or dreadful injury to date at the hands of the Israel Defense Forces.
Physical destruction of homes, buildings, infrastructure, schools, hospitals and businesses in Gaza is simply colossal. Perhaps half of built Gaza has been pulverised and there is no end in sight for the people who are herded from one bombing zone to another in pursuit of the destruction of Hamas.
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Likewise, what has happened in the West Bank has been barbarous. Apart from the killings, casualties and destruction of urban infrastructure, economic subjugation of West Bank Arabs has neared totality.
Now we have ongoing war in Lebanon with mass expulsions and uncounted civilian deaths and serious casualties in pursuit of Hizbullah who have rained aerial destruction on northern Israel.
All this is truly shocking, and all this could have been avoided if decency and statesmanship existed in adequate measure on either side of the Israeli-Palestinian historical dispute.
Those in Tehran and Tel Aviv, and those in Hamas and Hizbullah, who spent 25 years frustrating all international efforts to bring about a just and peaceful compromise based on a two-state solution bear joint responsibility for all that has happened in that quarter century.
Words spoken by Ireland’s chief rabbi, Yoni Wieder, at the October 7th massacre vigil in Dublin need to be carefully examined. He claimed that Israel was not waging a war of retaliation against Hamas “whatever some politicians in this country might have us think”.
As I understand the Israeli government’s stated policy, the war against Hamas in Gaza is one of elimination, the “destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities”. Precisely how one eliminates Hamas has never been clarified. Does it entail the destruction of everyone who participated in the Hamas administration of the Gaza Strip?
It must be recalled that growth of Hamas was not merely observed by Israel’s right-wing government; it was actively encouraged because it weakened and divided the Palestinians and undermined pretensions of the West Bank PLO movement to represent Palestinians internationally.
The apparent success of the current Israeli campaign against Hizbullah has undoubtedly increased the morale and sense of solidarity of pro-Israel supporters. Many had been flagging in the face of international revulsion at the destruction of Gaza and its population, and the manifest failure of the Israel Defense Forces and their government to secure the release of the hostages.
Few neutral observers felt much compassion for most victims of the remarkable deployment of exploding pagers in the hands of Hamas operatives. Statements issued by Hizbullah and their allies, including the Iranian theocracy, still insist that their aim is the destruction of the state of Israel.
Ireland’s position is, always has been, and I think always will be, that we recognise the right of Israel to exist in security and peace within the boundaries determined by international law specified under Resolution 242 of the United Nations. Creeping annexation of the West Bank territories is, in the eyes of Ireland and the International Court of Justice, wholly unlawful.
Every adherent of the International Court of Justice is bound, as a matter of international law, to take all reasonable steps to prevent the unlawful expansion of the territory of Israel by the campaign of settlement encouraged by extreme Zionists and their supporters in Israel, United States, and everywhere else.
Calls from members of the Israeli government for military action against the Iranian government in the form of aerial destruction of its military and petrochemical infrastructure are massively dangerous in present circumstances.
The hope of Israelis that the anniversary of October 7th will mark a turning point, and that international sympathy will strengthen if the Middle East is embroiled in regional warfare, are misplaced.
The majority of Europeans and of the world beyond the US have had enough of the savagery and barbarity. They demand a just peace based on a two-state solution. I hope that is the view of the chief rabbi in Ireland – because it is also the stated view of many courageous Jews who live in Ireland.