Madam, – On numerous occasions this week I have been called on to apologise for my comments at last week's Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee.
At that meeting I compared the propaganda efforts of both Deputy Alan Shatter and the Israeli ambassador to those employed by the Nazi regime in denying the Holocaust.
Anyone who takes the time to read the full transcript of the debate would be in no doubt that my comments were in no way prompted by Deputy Shatter's religious status but rather by his appalling efforts to justify the unjustifiable murder of hundreds of Palestinian children and civilians by Israel.
To derive from my support for the Palestinian people that I am anti-Semitic is twisted logic.
To deny that white-phosphorous was used by Israel against the Palestinians is blatantly false.
To attempt to justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people, the killing of hundreds of innocent children and civilians, the complete destruction of Palestinian infrastructure, the blocking of food, medical supplies and fuel into Gaza and the targeting of schools and creches, as Deputy Shatter and the Israeli ambassador did during that meeting, is to attempt to justify the unjustifiable, as the infamous Nazi war propagandist Josef Goebbels did during the Holocaust.
This is the context within which I made my comments.
I apologise only to the Palestinian people for unintentionally distracting media attention from their immediate plight and for the failures of my Government and of others in my Parliament to take stronger action. – Yours, etc,
AENGUS Ó SNODAIGH TD,
Leinster House,
Kildare Street,
Dublin 1.
Madam, – So Deputy Alan Shatter is "appalled" and the Israeli ambassador, Zion Evrony, "outraged" by the equation of current Israeli propaganda with that of Dr Goebbels.
Is it not a trifle strange that neither was appalled or outraged by the reported "mounting war crimes accusations" against the Israeli army by senior UN officials, detailed in
The Irish Timeson the very same day as the Goebbels allegation (January 13th)?
These accusations included the deliberate bombing of crowded UN schools and centres, attacking hospitals and killing ambulance personnel, using banned phosphorous weapons and heavy blast bombs in crowded areas, the slaughter of "scores" of unarmed young police recruits at a passing out parade and using Palestinian families as human shields. Irish observers and human rights officials reported other acts too sickening to detail here.
One wonders why these and other allegations of what can only be described as Nazi-like atrocities, did not appal and outrage Messrs Shatter and Evrony?
In the circumstances, one feels the deputy and ambassador doth protest too much about the Goebbels remark. – Yours, etc,
BILLY FITZPATRICK,
Terenure,
Dublin 6W.
Madam, – We are people in Ireland who are Jewish or of Jewish descent.
We are appalled by Israel's slaughter in Gaza. We have seen people justifying this on the basis of Israel's "security concerns" and attacking supporters of peace for being anti-Jewish.
In this climate we feel it important to assert that it is not anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish to oppose Israel's action.
Nor, however, can it be part of any progressive political vision to conflate what the Israeli state has done and is doing in Gaza as being supported by Jews worldwide.
Throughout the world, Jews have opposed the invasion of Gaza.
In Israel itself, tens of thousands protested this war; they have been attacked by police and right-wing mobs and many Israelis, predominantly non-Jewish but also Jewish, have been imprisoned.
We ask people to support these Israelis.
As for Israel's security concerns, two points need to be made. Firstly nothing, but nothing, justifies the massacre of innocent people.
Secondly, peace will only come about through justice for the Palestinian people and through negotiations between Israel and elected Palestinian representatives.
One does not need to be Jewish to know this.
We ask people not to claim to speak for us when justifying Israel's barbarity. – Yours, etc,
KATRINA GOLDSTONE,
CONOR KOSTICK,
GAVIN KOSTICK,
DAVID LANDY,
RONIT LENTIN,
ANTONIA LESLIE,
SUE PENTEL,
JONATHAN SUGARMAN
c/o The Tenters,
Dublin 8.
Madam – When Hamas and the PLO commit war crimes along with their institutional Jew hatred, that is called "resistance to occupation"; when Israel finally executes a defence it is called a "war crime".
"What is good is evil and what is evil is good"; the Bible certainly predicted the moral clarity of today. – Yours, etc,
KEITH DAVIES
Newtown, PA,
USA.