Letters

Susan Abulhawa’s controversial tweet

Comment and context

Thu Mar 16 2023 - 00:02

Sir, – Fintan O’Toole, quoting Susan Abulhawa’s tweet that “no Palestinian should support a corrupt, Nazi-promoting Zionist like Zelenskiy”, comments that “the reference to him as a ‘Zionist’ verged, in the context, on anti-Semitism – it was ‘relevant’ only because he is Jewish” (“Gary Lineker debacle is all part of the continuing saga of Britain eating itself”, Opinion & Analysis, March 14th).

In 2020, shortly after becoming Ukrainian president, Mr Zelenskiy withdrew Ukraine from the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People”, which seeks “to enable Palestinian people to exercise their inalienable rights, including the right to self-determination … the right to national independence and sovereignty, and the right to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced”, rights that Mr Zelenskiy naturally and rightly assumes are “inalienable” in the Ukrainian context. I have little doubt that Susan Abulhawa had this contemptuous gesture in mind when she posted her tweet, and not the fact that he is Jewish, something that Palestinians never equate with being Zionist. In reality the majority of the world’s Zionists aren’t Jewish, but Christian evangelicals who believe that the “return” of Jews to Palestine is part of “God’s plan”, while consigning to perdition those Jews who don’t subsequently convert to Christianity. – Yours, etc,

RAYMOND DEANE,

Dublin 7.

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Sir, – Loathe as I am to correct Fintan O’Toole’s excellent article, states have premiers in Australia, not prime ministers. – Yours, etc,

VICTORIA SOMERS,

Parkville,

Victoria,

Australia.