Madam, – I write in response to the letter promoted by the Ireland Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, signed by a number of Oireachtas members, among others, and printed as an advertisement in The Irish Times last Saturday.
As an Oireachtas member who chose not to sign that letter I believe I have a responsibility to explain that I disagree with its call for Irish people to boycott Israeli goods and services.
I abhor all of the deaths and suffering of civilians and children in this conflict, both in recent weeks in Gaza and over the years in both the Palestinian territories and Israel. Whatever the wrongs that have been carried out by either side, which I condemn, the only way to end this death and suffering is through a peace process. A boycott of one side in a conflict which has two sides would not contribute to a peace process. It would be an act of hostility against Israel and its people. There is a need to guard against any approach that might encourage those who are anti-Semitic and/or opposed to the existence of Israel.
US president Barack Obama has signalled a strong intention to contribute to a peace process that would lead to Israel and Palestine coexisting side by side by appointing as Middle East Envoy former senator George Mitchell. I believe we should take as our example George Mitchell’s approach to the peace process in Northern Ireland, and that we should engage constructively, rather than negatively, with both the Palestinian and Israeli peoples in efforts to bring about peace. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Contrary to the report of your correspondent Lara Marlowe, who sat with me for a lengthy conversation which she unfortunately did not tape-record, I neither stated nor implied that “the Palestinians of Gaza must be punished for voting for Hamas in democratic elections three years ago” (The Irish Times, January 31st).
Indeed, when she put this to me, I told her adamantly that I did not believe this was the case. I told her that Israel was defending itself against a terrorist government in Gaza that had cynically planted its military facilities – weapons factories, rocket launchers, mortar batteries, etc – in the heart of Gaza’s residential areas, its hospitals, mosques, homes and schools, thus deliberately placing Gazans in harm’s way.
Also not accurately reflected in her report, I explained that unfortunately Israel could not take Hamas leader Khaled Mashal “at his word” when he made occasional conciliatory statements about Israel. Hamas’s guiding charter calls for Israel’s destruction, and it refuses to recognise Israel and abandon terrorism — the international community’s preconditions for legitimising Hamas.
The Jerusalem Post, breezily categorised in her report as “a right-wing newspaper”, emphatically supports a viable accommodation with the Palestinians as both a Palestinian and an Israeli imperative, publishes opinion pieces from across the Israeli political spectrum, and has no partisan affiliation. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Jack Engelhard’s article “Spare me the pieties of ‘good people’ on Gaza” (Opinion, February 2nd), claiming that those who take part in anti-Israeli protests are doing it as “a front for expressions of hatred of Jews”, made my blood boil.
Those who protest do so because of their disapproval of the unnecessary deaths of over a thousand Palestinian civilians in a grossly disproportionate response to Hamas’s aggression, and not because Israel is a Jewish state.
I would guess that those protesting would also like to see resolutions to the humanitarian crises in Iraq, Tibet, and Zimbabwe for the same reasons — namely to see the end of the unnecessary human suffering in these regions. Any antagonistic feelings against the US, China, and Zimbabwe, in the above cases respectively, have nothing to do with the race or religion of their governments or peoples: it is the horrific results of their actions that is the root of this antagonism.
The same applies in the case of the recent Israeli offensive in Gaza and to suggest otherwise is shameful. The protests described are anti-war, not anti-Jewish, period. – Yours, etc,