Sir, – Coming as it does at the close of a year that saw at least 150 Palestinians, including 50 children, killed by Israel’s occupation forces, I cannot help but view Israeli ambassador Lironne Bar Sadeh’s stated horror at this week’s tragedy in Lebanon as remarkably selective (“World must back UN role in Lebanon”, Letters, December 21st) .
The ambassador is correct; this week’s attack cannot be viewed as “an isolated incident”. The “incitement” that she is so keen to call out, north of the border, is matched by sickening anti-Palestinian invective in an Israeli political sphere where chauvinistic, theocratic ultra-nationalists, such as Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, have gained access to the levers of state power. This toxic climate has seen an increase in fatal attacks on Palestinians by illegal Israeli settlers.
Given the Israeli government’s refusal to countenance a criminal investigation into the killing of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh this year, not to mention the series of discredited claims and insinuations made by Israeli military spokespeople, the ambassador’s complaint that “Lebanese investigations drag on for years while failing to deliver the truth” would be laughable were this not such a grievous matter.
Ms Bar Sadeh’s call for the international community to take a stand for “stability for everyone in the region” might appear more credible if the state that she represents were not pursuing an ostensibly temporary military occupation for 55 years and counting.
Out of respect for the brave men and women who continue to lay their lives on the line to fulfil Unifil’s peacekeeping mission in the Middle East, I implore of Ms Bar Sadeh to examine her own state’s deplorable policies before pointing the finger of blame. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN Ó ÉIGEARTAIGH,
Donnybrook,
Dublin 4.
Sir, – In the wake of the dreadful killing in Lebanon of Pte Seán Rooney and wounding of Trooper Shane Kearney, the Israeli ambassador Lironne Bar Sadeh tells us that “The world must give its full backing to Unifil and condemn attacks on its peacekeepers”.
Unifil was founded in 1978 to oversee Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanese territory, and Ireland was one of the first countries to contribute peacekeepers. Prior to Pte Rooney’s death, 15 Irish Unifil soldiers have died in the line of fire.
Of these, one was killed by an Israeli tank shell while seven were killed by an Israeli-backed militia, the so-called South Lebanon Army, a terrorist unit founded by the renegade Lebanese army officer Saad Haddad.
The SLA ran the notorious Khiam prison and torture centre, and participated in the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre.
In 1996 an Israeli army unit commanded by Naftali Bennett, who would later become Israeli prime minister and boast that “I have killed many Arabs in my life, and there’s no problem with that”, bombed a Unifil shelter at Qana, killing 106 Lebanese civilians and wounding four Fijian Unifil soldiers.
In view of these facts, the ambassador’s expressions of concern and condemnation smack of quite extraordinary chutzpah and hypocrisy. – Yours, etc,
RAYMOND DEANE,
Broadstone,
Dublin 7.