Séamas O'Reilly: Israel long ago realised attempting to defend their actions is unnecessary

The flag of Palestine flying outside Leinster House, Dublin, following the decision by the Government to formally recognise the state of Palestine.

Last week, along with Norway and Spain, Ireland recognised the state of Palestine. 

This was a welcome, if small, step toward greater solidarity with the Palestinian people and, in a global sense, an uncontroversial one. 

The decision taken by those three nations merely brings the total number of UN member states who recognise Palestine to 146 from a total of 193. 

Almost immediately, however, some sought to equate this move with literal terrorism. 

Sky News’ Adam Boulton made this point most literally, captioning the Irish government’s statement to the press with the words “Terrorism works” — comments for which, it would appear, he has suffered zero censure from his workplace.

That, however, was small beer when compared to the most striking response to Ireland’s announcement, a baffling video that was widely shared in the hours that followed. 

“Hamas: Thanks Ireland” it blared in large capital letters set atop a chintzily animated Irish flag billowing in digital wind. 

There followed images of Hamas fighters shooting guns, intercut with the crochet-stockinged legs of some Irish dancers, all soundtracked with ‘Inn House Whiskey’ by Ian Post and Ziv Moran. 

A pedant might note that this music choice created a strange dissonance between the jaunty, rock-tinged Oirish-scented audio bed, and the courtly children’s steps displayed on screen, but seeing as the music’s other visual counterpart was Hamas fighters shooting assault weapons, I will concede those mismatched dance moves were a relatively minor crime, and one we can push past without further comment.

To add insult to injury, it was followed shortly afterward by another video which blared “Hamas: Gracias España”, and intercut the same Hamas footage with Spanish guitar music and Flamenco dancers, rather suggesting the video’s editors keeps a big red box marked “crude national stereotypes” within easy reach at all times. 

Clearly it could do with a refresh, since even those low standards were breached in the video attacking Norway. It announced “Hamas: Thanks Norway” — in English, presumably because the Norwegian for “thanks Norway” wasn’t worth looking up — overcut with an inscrutable Viking fire
ritual which seemed even less germane to the pastimes of modern-day Norwegians than flamenco or jigs and reels.

These were, all in all, very odd documents, whose production values and muddled attempts at deploying stereotypes caused as much bemusement as offence, before one even addressed the source from which they came. 

For these videos were shared on Twitter, not by some fringe, anonymous crank with a roman statue for an avatar and eight numbers after their name, but by the Israeli foreign minister himself, Israel Katz.

My first thought was to wonder why the $26.4bn package that America signed off for Israel last month didn’t stretch to a professional video editing package. 

My second was, oddly, a distinct lack of surprise that Israel’s comms apparatus was resorting to such garbled PR moves, since the last six months have shown it is either unable or unwilling to do much else.

THE FACTS

To recap once more, at least 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October, 15,000 of them children. 

Israel has bombed — and in most cases, destroyed — every university and hospital on the strip, and innumerable schools, shelters, safe zones, and places of worship. 

They have killed at least 100 journalists and 500 medical workers. 

Within all this death, there have been enough distinct massacres that they now bear shorthand names to be more easily distinguished from each other; the flour massacre, the Jabalia massacre, the Al-Shifa massacre, to name but three.

All of this has been done in full view of the world, with unimaginable atrocities beamed directly into the pockets of a horrified global audience 24 hours a day. 

Both the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court sanctioned Israel last week, with the former ordering them to cease their bombardment of Rafah, and the latter issuing arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant respectively. 

In lieu of actually stopping the onslaught, Israel’s chief response has been to charge its critics — as it does with protesters, aid groups, human rights organisations, Ireland, and the UN itself — as terrorist sympathisers. 

Two days after those arrest warrants were issued, another massacre was added to the list, when Israel bombarded the Rafah crossing, killing at least 50 Palestinians in a designated ‘humanitarian area’, and injuring at least 200 more.

A move so shocking it provoked even wider global condemnation than before, and prompted Netanyahu to issue a rare admission of guilt, before resuming the bombing the following day, killing a further 21 Palestinians.

Sometimes a word like ‘indefensible’ risks losing all meaning through over-use, but Israel’s ongoing response to its crimes suggests that they, at least, have fully internalised the concept. 

They long ago realised that attempting to defend their actions is unnecessary, given that their primary benefactor in Washington has neither the will to stop bankrolling their atrocities, nor even the clout to moderate their pace. 

It is clearer now than it has ever been, that the rules-based international order Israel so constantly holds in contempt, has little mollifying effect.

Escalating condemnations and public protests, recognitions of Palestinian statehood, and censure from the planet’s most senior legal bodies, are good and proper steps but they are no substitute for direct sanctions.

This week, Simon Harris called for “all countries to use every lever at their disposal to bring about the maximum pressure to result in a ceasefire”. It is way past time for this to involve us divesting from Israel economically. 

Israel’s ambassador to Ireland, Dana Elrich warned last week that €5bn in trade between the two countries could be risked by any move in this direction. 

Within a comms strategy that was days ago branding us step-dancing terrorists, a statement of such clarity is welcome, and we should thank her for it. 

For in giving us a number she extended a rare privilege; nothing less than quoting us, out loud, the price of our soul.