Sir, - Now that Ireland has obtained a position on the United Nations Security Council, our Government should use whatever diplomatic channels that are available to call a halt to the bloodshed in the occupied territories of Palestine.
Of all nations, Ireland has a historical parallel with the plight of the Palestinian people: colonisation, disenfranchisement, depravation, exile, and partition.
Since the partition of Palestine in 1948, and the creation of Israel, the Israeli authorities, with the active support of the United States, have denied the Palestinians' aspiration for a country of their own. Moreover, since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, the Israeli authorities have used repressive techniques to alienate and marginalise Palestinians within their own country.
The systematic deployment of Israeli settlements within the occupied territories is no different to the ethnic cleansing employed in Bosnia and Kosovo, which revolted world public opinion not so long ago.
It is truly ironic that Western public opinion opposed ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia, genocidal occupation in East Timor, and apartheid in South Africa, yet has remained mute regarding those crimes against humanity that are apparent from the scenes we have witnessed on our television screens over the past fortnight.
If the Irish Government is sincerely interested in pursuing an active role on the UN Security Council, it is upon this sensitive issue that moral diplomacy should be brought to bear. - Yours, etc.,
N.A. Neligan, Law Library, Dublin 7.