Madam, — It is good to read that Tom Clonan enjoyed his visit to Syria under the auspices of the European Union’s “Neighbourhood Policy” (An Irishman’s Diary, March 10th).
However, his account is marred by the casual dropping of the kind of one-sided anti-Israel remarks that have become almost reflexive among certain Irish commentators.
Mr Clonan refers to the tragic accidental killing of Lebanese civilians in April 1996, but doesn’t say that they were exposed as human shields by Hizbullah terrorists firing on Israeli troops; moreover, this incident was in the wake of Hizbullah rocketing peaceful northern Israeli towns for weeks.
Mr Clonan has been a fierce critic of Israel’s campaign in Gaza aimed at ending Hamas rocket fire at Israel. It is all the more ironic that he should label the 1996 deaths as “slaughter” while making only the most fleeting of references to Syria’s own struggles with what he delicately calls “religious fundamentalism”.
While presenting a rosy picture of the situation in Syria, Mr Clonan seems to have forgotten the events in the western Syrian town of Hama in 1982. That city was the centre of a campaign against the Assad regime by the Muslim Brotherhood organization. In response, Syrian soldiers – in one month – massacred, according to Amnesty International estimates, between 10,000 and 25,000 civilians in Hama and levelled the town.
Those who are so quick to condemn Israel should know – and if they do know should say – that far more Arabs have been killed by Arabs over the past 60 years than have died in the many conflicts whose purpose was to destroy Israel.
Finally, in his piece Mr Clonan makes no mention of the fact that for the past year Israel and Syria, with Turkish mediation, have held negotiations for the sake of peace. – Yours, etc,