Sir, – Justine McCarthy (Opinion, November 3rd) states that the post-Holocaust agreement to create a safe homeland for Jewish people sowed the seeds of injustice which gave rise to the current Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
Unfortunately, the victimisation and routine massacre of Jews in the Middle-East and Europe is a little bit older than that.
The Holocaust was the culmination of centuries of anti-Semitism which is still alive and thriving.
No doubt the fact that concentration camp survivors, who were ritually denied a return to their own European homes on release, were determined to create a state on a familiar piece of land that is less than 1 per cent of that held by the Muslim people at the time.
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There never was a Palestinian state, the Turks ruled the region for centuries (Jews were forbidden to buy land).
And now the Jews have the effrontery to try and survive. Whatever next. – Yours, etc,
EUGENE TANNAM,
Firhouse, Dublin 24.
Sir, – I thought of John Lennon’s anti-war song Imagine, as the new Beatles song Now and Then was played this week. I thought of the anti-war songs we don’t hear anymore.
I cry when I see the (sanitised for TV) war crimes inflicted on thousands of innocent children and adults in Gaza, as Israel seeks retribution for the war crimes inflicted on thousands of their innocent children and adults on October 7th by Hamas. It is long past an eye for an eye now and gets us nowhere.
Fintan O’Toole’s insightful article (Israel can take Gaza. But it cannot leave it, Opinion, October 31st) helps to untangle the chaos but not the pain in my heart.
He quotes from then Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s Nobel Peace Prize lecture in 1994: “Military cemeteries in every corner of the world are silent testimony to the failure of national leaders to sanctify human life … The one radical solution is peace.”
Yes, John and Yoko: “Imagine all the people/Sharing all the world.” – Yours, etc,
JOAN REIDY, Malahide,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – Bolivia has broken off diplomatic relations with Israel, while Colombia and Chile have withdrawn their ambassadors. Well done them. When will the EU have the will to do the same and stand by the stated principles of the European Union?
No one with any sense of decency supported Hamas in their bloody attack but, as has been stated, this act was not carried out in a vacuum.
The Israeli action, even if they destroy Hamas once and for all, will not solve the situation, a new group equally determined to kill Israelis will emerge.
The EU must promote peace and ensure the Palestinians are treated as equal citizens, have their own country and be allowed the freedoms we enjoy.
Israel’s present actions will only encourage recruitment to terrorist organisations and extend the violence in the Middle East in a never ending cycle. – Yours, etc,
DENNIS HAWKE,
Letterkenny, Co Donegal.
Sir, – After giving Israel the go-ahead to bombard the people of Gaza in recent weeks, US secretary of state Antony Blinken now calls on Israel to pause its offensive.
At the same time, the UN asks for a ceasefire, saying “the Palestinian people are at grave risk of genocide”.
It has echoes of when Emperor Nero played his violin, Rome went up in flames. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL CULLEN,
Sandycove, Co Dublin.