Sir, – Barry Walsh reiterates a claim worn threadbare by Israeli spokespeople, that “Israel withdrew fully from Gaza in 2005. As thanks for this, it got 15 years of rocket attacks launched by Hamas against Israeli civilians, eventually culminating in the recent massacre” (Letters, October 18th).
The Israeli government’s stage-managed withdrawal of its troops and illegal settlers from the Gaza Strip was no concession towards peace; it was a cynical decoy to deflect mounting international criticism of its oppression of the Palestinian people, allowing successive Israeli governments to continue their de facto annexation of the larger and more desirable territory of the West Bank.
Ariel Sharon commended the disengagement plan to the Knesset in 2005, promising that it would “preserve the large Israeli settlement blocs under our control forever”. His adviser Dov Weissglas had explained the previous year that “the significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process”.
Israeli historian Ilan Pappé illustrated another motive for the manoeuvre: “to turn the Gaza Strip into a mega-prison that could be guarded and monitored from the outside”.
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He explained that the presence of illegal Israeli settlers in the enclave would limit the Israeli military’s ability to deploy “massive bombardments and the destruction of rebellious Palestinian pockets”, as it had done in the Jenin refugee camp in 2002.
If anyone doubts that the Israeli state has acted as the jailer of the Gazan population ever since, let them explain how water, upon which 2.3 million people depend, could be cut off last week at the stroke of an Israeli minister’s pen. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN Ó ÉIGEARTAIGH,
Donnybrook,
Dublin 4.
Sir, – “It is one of the most tragic of ironies that the route out of this appalling circumstance for Jews – the establishment of Israel – simultaneously rendered another people stateless by failing to support the creation of a Palestinian state’' (”Humanity is insufficient in Israel-Hamas war because, too often, it only means ‘people like us’”, Opinion & Analysis, October 17th).
It must be remembered that back in 1947, the United Nations proposed a plan for the partitioning of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, with the city of Jerusalem as a separate entity (a two-state set-up).
The Jewish community accepted the plan; the Arab community – egged on by the likes of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, and Egypt – rejected it. This repudiation led to the hasty creation of the modern State of Israel in 1948: the establishment of which has resulted in the seven-decade-long oppression of the Palestinian people.
A two-state solution to the seemingly intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains the only show in town; so let’s get on with the process of bringing this solution about. Enough of the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent Israelis and Palestinians! – Yours, etc,
PAUL DELANEY,
Dalkey,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – There will be no solution to the problems of the Palestinian people until the so-called West, particularly the US, looks at the problem in the round, putting ideology and old hatreds aside, for the future peace of both Israel and Palestine. – Yours, etc,
PETER PALLAS,
Bantry,
Co Cork.
Sir, – As a retired civil servant, I am somewhat disturbed and at a loss to understand how Barry Walsh can describe our Government’s call for restraint by Israel as “civil service-speak” (Letters, October 18th).
At least 3,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed so far by Israeli air strikes in violation of the Geneva Convention.
I am quite sure that our elected Government does not need to look to the Civil Service for guidance in the context of a humanitarian disaster. – Yours, etc,
MARTIN McDONALD,
Terenure,
Dublin 12.
Sir, – Ever since, as a very young person, I became aware that six million Jews were systematically murdered in Europe, I have harboured a deep anxiety any time any events occurred which caused me to be critical of Jews in general or of Israel in particular.
Today I am aware that many right-thinking, moral and compassionate people are, for the same reason, understandably hesitant to give voice to their deep misgivings about the treatment of Palestinians by Israel. I have no doubt whatsoever that in recent days this moral and mental turmoil tears at the conscience and consciousness of countless numbers of such people and renders them speechless in the face of the current situation in Gaza.
May I offer some advice to those struggling with this noble, but deeply inhibiting, dilemma?
For the past few years every time a new crisis focuses attention on Israel/Palestine I go online to a US-based organisation called Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). This large and highly respected organisation confines full membership to people who are themselves Jewish. As such, people like me can feel that they are being told the truth, even at times truths which are deeply inimical to Israeli policies and actions.
When I consult online with JVP I know that I can be assured that even my most critical assessment of the actions of the Israeli government and army will not make me feel that I have broken my decades-old promise never, ever, to be guilty of the racist prejudice which so recently (relatively speaking) allowed the mass murder of millions of Jewish men, women, children and babies right here in Europe. – Yours, etc,
MIKE JENNINGS,
Clontarf,
Dublin 3.