Irish Examiner view: In Lebanon and Palestine, as everywhere — blessed are the peacekeepers

A state which frequently and vigorously proclaims its belief in democracy is not the type of entity we would expect to launch attacks on UN peacekeepers. Picture: Pexels

In an extraordinary parallel universe — one conjured up by the fantasists at Marvel Comics perhaps — there may be part of the multiverse where you could find a kernel of justification for mounting an attack on the blue helmets of the United Nations.

But it’s unlikely anyone would believe it. Opening fire on peacekeepers is usually the province of deranged warlords, militia chiefs, combatants in civil wars, tribal leaders, frustrated dictators, and those who believe that might is right. Not a country which proclaims its belief in democracy so frequently and vigorously.

It does not redound to the credit of Israel that its defence forces have been firing on the UN’s buffer forces in southern Lebanon ,where an expanded war on Hezbollah is being pursued.

For three days in a row, members of Unifil (the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) report that their positions have been shelled and two people injured.

Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, urged Unifil to relocate 5km north “to avoid danger as fighting intensifies” but it is not for Jerusalem to move neutral forces around like pieces on a checkerboard.

As President Michael D Higgins pointed out, this was a threat aimed at getting Irish troops to “evacuate the villages they are defending”.

French diplomat Jean-Pierre Lacroix, who is responsible for peacekeeping operations, says the security of the 10,400 UN representatives in Lebanon is “increasingly in jeopardy” and that operations have virtually ceased.

Although Ireland’s soldiers and support staff will be stoical as they sit in their camps, it is easy to imagine the anger felt by Irish people everywhere at the outlandish comments of a US political adviser who has resigned after calling on Israel to “drop napalm” over Irish peacekeepers.

Matthew RJ Brodsky, who previously advised the Trump administration’s Middle East peace team and the White House’s Palestinian-Israeli peace team, circulated a post from X/Twitter which mapped where our forces are currently positioned.

Israel, he said, “should carpet bomb the Irish area and then drop napalm over it”. He had earlier quoted a post from another user who said: “I hope every one of those useless POS Irishmen are blasted to bits.”

Mr Brodsky, whose X/Twitter account is now suspended, has stood down from his role as an adviser to a Republican candidate seeking election in Minnesota’s 5th congressional district.

Dalia al-Aqidi personally extended her “sincerest apologies to the people of Ireland and anyone affected by the actions of a member of my campaign team”.

One might observe that, in politics, apologies are 10 a penny.

What democracies want from the US right now is leadership, and the chances of that are small as we enter the home straight for the battle for the White House with every vote likely to count and no room for errors of judgement.

Taoiseach Simon Harris spoke for many world leaders when he said: “Firing on peacekeepers can never be tolerated or acceptable. The blue helmet worn by UN peacekeepers must be sacrosanct. They are not combatants, and their role must be respected at all times.”

If members of Unifil take serious casualties, this could be a tipping point which may move the argument decisively away from Israel and force its diminishing number of supporters in the West into taking action on the supply of arms and materiel on which the IDF depends.

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A sense of entitlement

There have been many occasions on which we have deplored the abusive and threatening treatment of retail and public service staff by aggressive customers.

The situation, described by Fianna Fáil’s senator Malcolm Byrne when he introduced his bill to combat the problem last spring, is grim.

“Retail workers face horrible abuse, such as physical and verbal attacks, while they are simply trying to carry out their work. It is clear that the level of abuse they face is unbearable and there is a clear need to toughen legislation in this space.”

Any progress on this potential legislation depends on the decisions of the general election planners. However, we should note that laws are moving ahead in other countries.

Among them is Japan, which we in the West would normally regard as among the most courteous and scrupulously polite of societies.

However, the Japanese are observing a change in public behaviour, and they think they know why — the dominant streak of selfishness associated with modern consumerism.

The rise of the abusive consumer has stirred authorities in Tokyo to introduce the country’s first ordinance to protect service industry staff from kasuhara — Japanese for “customer harassment”.

More than one in two workers have been on the receiving end of abuse and excessive demands.

The Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported how one staff member visited a customer’s home to deal with a complaint about out-of-date tofu, only to discover the purchase had been made a fortnight earlier.

He tried to handle the complainant with diplomacy but was forced to prostrate himself and apologise.

We can’t see anyone from Dunnes, Spar, or Centra offering that service. You can only go so far to meet someone’s over-inflated sense of entitlement.

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New bosses and old woes 

In many ways the election of a new leader for what remains of the Conservative party in the jurisdiction of our next door neighbours is a footling matter. We won’t have to deal with a Tory Downing Street or House of Commons for at least five years, and perhaps much, much longer.

But for people who like politics, and there are plenty of us in this country, there is much of interest as Keir Starmer approaches his first 100 days in office on Monday.

Not that he has had a smooth time. Unseemly arguments about unwise decisions to accept clothes allowances from political allies shifted him off the moral high ground of the past 20 months; his chancellor’s decision to take away money from the heating allowance for pensioners to give above inflation pay rises to a number of unions was an avoidable mis-step; the loss of his chief of staff Sue Gray and her replacement by Macroom’s master strategist Morgan McSweeney...

All these controversies have provided a sense of continuity in the least satisfactory way for Labour. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

More hubbub is brewing with the first budget from Rachel Reeves on Wednesday, October 30, which is likely to produce a number of reverberations across the political spectrum.

And, as fate would have it, in that very same week, Conservative party members will cast their vote for their next leader.

The runners have been reduced to just two in a series of knockout contests by MPs. And, almost unbelievably if this was not the party once run by Boris Johnson, the field now consists of two candidates from the right of the party, and no one from the centre.

The centre’s man, James Cleverly, a one-time home secretary, fell behind Robert Jenrick, who gained 41 votes and the charismatic Kemi Badenoch — “lampooned as Bad Enoch” by left-wing opponents — who topped the poll of MPs with 42 votes.

She is the current favourite to win the popular vote with the decision now out of the hands and machinations of MPs.

Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch, aged 44, is a mother of three, of Nigerian heritage, born in Wimbledon, South London.

Her father was a GP and her mother a professor of physiology and she was brought up in Lagos and the US, where her mother lectured. She has degrees in engineering and law.

She is a blunt and direct speaker which means, if she wins, that we can expect some lively entertainment in the next parliamentary session.

What the Tory old guard will make of it is an entirely different matter.