People need to speak up against the violence

The real question about Gaza is: Would we allow what’s happening there to happen in Northern Ireland? (Letters, July 22)

But we did, during the period when we turned a blind eye to Irish terrorists in Northern Ireland bombing and murdering innocent British civilians, which SF/IRA claimed it was doing in our name with our support. No one disputed the right of the British government to defend her citizens from these attacks. It was so successful at defending them that a defeated SF/IRA had to accept a ceasefire in 1994, or face complete and utter defeat. The first step in stopping those terrorists began when decent Irish people, in all communities, started to challenge SF/IRA claims that they were ever acting with the moral and practical support of normal Irish people.

No normal person can ever justify placing a bomb in a pub or a shop no matter what issues they are facing at home and those who claim the poor living conditions of nationalists in Northern Ireland were all due to unionist government policy, whilst ignoring the impact of Catholic social teaching on those communities, still need to be challenged.

But look, having got the message that the people of Northern Ireland do not support them, SF/IRA are now part of the Northern Ireland government, implementing water and property charges, and cutting services, just like they claim they wouldn’t do in the Republic. But still, give me a regular lying political party over a murdering terrorist one any day.

Perhaps when normal Palestinians start to challenge the narrative that Hamas has their full support to aim rockets at Israeli schools with the full intention to murder innocent Israeli children, they might find to their surprise that while still reserving the right to deal with borders and other issues, they get a more friendly response from Israel.

Just like once the SF/IRA accepted the fact that, like it or not, part of Ulster is part of the United Kingdom, and would remain so until such time, if ever, that the majority of people on the island of Ireland choose to change it.

Desmond FitzGerald

Canary Wharf

London

England