Stance typical of anti-Israel activists

Dervla Murphy’s call for a boycott of Israel is one-sided and shows a misunderstanding of the facts, writes Boaz Modai

DERVLA Murphy is a well-respected writer whose books are read almost as widely as the countries in which she has travelled.

It is all the more disappointing, then, that in her open letter to President Higgins (Feb 9, 2012) calling on him to boycott Israel, she should abandon the dispassionate approach of the travel writer for the openly partisan championing of one side of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, vilifying the nation state of the Jewish people and the only liberal democracy in its region.