A chara, – Well done to President Michael D Higgins in taking European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to task for her one-sided comments during her recent visit to Israel and her presumption to speak for the entire European Union on the issue (“Von der Leyen’s approach to Israel-Hamas conflict thoughtless and reckless, says Higgins”, News, October 16th).
President Higgins has the pulse of the Irish people on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There is an utter abhorrence at the horrific attack by Hamas on defenceless civilians in Israel. But there is also an instinctive sympathy with the plight of the Palestinian civilians who are now caught in the crossfire. These people have in effect been ordered by the Israeli military to leave their homes and vacate their city of over one million residents. With all water and electricity supplies cut off, this forced displacement of an entire city would be unbelievable if it wasn’t happening before our eyes.
Two wrongs never made a right, and how fortunate we are to have a President who is not afraid to speak out in support of the rights of innocent civilians on both sides of the tragic divide in Israel and Palestine. – Is mise,
JOHN GLENNON,
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Hollywood,
Co Wicklow.
A chara, – It is true that the reactions of EU leaders like European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and president of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola to the October 7th attacks against Israel “lacked balance”. That day, which saw the murder, torture, rape, and kidnapping of hundreds of civilians, was not an occasion for balance any more than were the September 11th attacks or the 2017 Manchester bombing. It was an occasion for grief, outrage, and solidarity with the victims.
There’s no denying the conflict is complex and that the situation of the Palestinian people has been unjust and unsustainable. But immediately after a pogrom of that scale, the relevant question was not “What is my solution to the Middle East conflict?”, it was “Do I find it acceptable for people to be murdered and tortured in large numbers because they are Jewish?” (For, when the murdered include many infants, you can’t claim they were all killed for being occupiers.)
For depressingly many, the answer seems to be “yes” or “don’t know or care”. Some were silent during the initial massacres, only to jump into the social media condemnation of Israel after it retaliated. Some – many Harvard societies, and students here – tried to excuse the pogrom, laying all the blame on Israel and talking of “wars of national liberation”, ignoring the fact that those targeted were civilians on sovereign Israeli territory. It is chilling to see students, recently my classmates, who spent the summer enjoying music festivals with their friends, making excuses for the murder and rape of people at a music festival abroad. These students, my generation, are modern internet ideologues but they are not an exceptional generation: they are conforming to a centuries-old pattern of behaviour whereby non-Jews, for whatever religious or ideological reason currently in vogue, explain why Jews deserve the brutality meted out to them.
We must make it clear that the victims of such atrocities do not stand alone, and that anti-Semitism and terrorism are unacceptable anywhere, something which is not mutually exclusive with a concern for Palestinians and the danger now faced by civilians in Gaza. Ms von der Leyen and Ms Metsola made that clear in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. That is to their credit. – Is mise,
AOIBH NÍ CHROIMÍN,
Waltershausen,
Germany.
Sir, – Mary Lou McDonald would have us believe that Ireland has a unique insight into the suffering of the Palestinian people, as a result of our own history of colonisation, dispossession, and the systematic theft of land and property. Does this not suggest that we are, at the same time, and by the same logic, clueless about Jewish history? – Yours, etc,
JOE McMINN,
Belfast.
Sir, – In his article on the Dáil debate on war in the Middle East, Pat Leahy reports the Sinn Féin leader as evoking the past colonised experience of Ireland as creating an affinity with the Palestinian struggle. (“Dáil shows its colours in Gaza debate”, Analysis, October 19th).
Hamas’s aim is the destruction of Israel. Could Mary Lou McDonald remind us of any past republican movement that in its noble pursuit of Irish freedom ever called for the annihilation of Great Britain? – Is mise,
KENNETH HARPER,
Burtonport,
Co Donegal.