Freedom of expression in Israel

Dr Laurence Davis of the Department of Government in UCC is well known for his unquestioning anti-Israel stance and it never fails to amaze me how one person could be so totally one sided and blind in his approach to this very complex question.

He unwittingly, presumably, contradicts himself when he uses Haneen Zoabi, a member of the Israeli Knesset, as an example to prove his point that Israel is not a democratic state that shares Western values. She got elected to the Israeli Parliament didn’t she? One can always get a disaffected member of Parliament to use any “lies, damn lies or statistics” to paint a sorry picture of one’s parliament if one is of a mind to.

What kind of a picture do you think the likes of Joe Higgins would paint of Ireland if he was asked to speak in, say, the Knesset?

What chance do you think a Jew would have of getting elected (if there were such things as free elections) in, say, Jordan, where Jews are not even allowed to own a house? In Saudi Arabia? In any of the Arab countries in fact?

Total freedom of religious expression is allowed in Israel. In Jerusalem, Muslims, Christians of all shades, Jews and anyone else live cheek-by-jowl, in some cases sharing even buildings between different sects. Even though Israel controls all of Jerusalem now, Muslims have total autonomy and their sacred Temple Mount is in their complete control.

Contrast that, if you will, with the fact that when Jordan controlled what was then East Jerusalem prior to 1967, they wouldn’t allow the Jews to worship at their most holy shrine, the Western (Wailing) wall! To compare Israel with apartheid South Africa is an obscenity unworthy of any reasonable person. There is no apartheid or anything like it there — all peaceable people have freedom to do what they want and go where they want.

Muslims and Jews have been sharing the Middle East for thousands of years, displacing each other regularly over the centuries, and there are rights and wrongs on all sides, and right-minded people have to consider that if there is ever to be a serious attempt at a permanent solution.

What nonsense is the call by Dr Davis for boycotts of Israel and sanctions against them?

If he accompanied this call with another against, say Saudi Arabia, which massively and routinely discriminates against at least 50% of the Saudi people, (the females), his argument may have more credibility.

Dermot Walsh

Douglas Road

Cork