Letters to the Editor: Crucial decision about Palestine by International Court of Justice
On Friday, the International Court of Justice, or World Court, in The Hague declared that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands is illegal. Picture: Peter Dejong/AP
One way or another, Friday’s advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice will go down as a watershed moment. Either it will be seen as a major turning point on the road to Palestinian freedom and self-determination, or as the final nail in the coffin of the rules-based international order and the post-Second World War system of international law.
It is up to us to decide which one it will be.
Not only did the ICJ, the world’s highest legal authority, declare the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands illegal, enumerating a long list of ongoing Israeli crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian Territories, including settlement, annexation, racial discrimination and forcible displacement. But it also decreed that states must not materially contribute to the ongoing criminal occupation and that they must not recognise the illegal situation that arises from it.
This means at the very least that Ireland must enact the Occupied Territories Bill and the Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill, as well as ending all military or dual-use trade with Israel and preventing American military planes from transporting weapons through Shannon Airport. But that is only the beginning.
As was done with South Africa during apartheid, Israel must be isolated on the world stage until it withdraws its military and evacuates its settlers from Palestinian lands occupied since 1967.
As such, Ireland must push for the EU to implement full trade sanctions on Israel and for the UN to suspend its membership, as was done with apartheid South Africa.
The only alternative is to abandon the system of international law which was created after the Holocaust to ensure that such atrocities were never allowed to happen again. Well, never again is now and the world must stand up for the inalienable rights of the Palestinians. If not for the children who continue to face unspeakable cruelties, then for our own shared future.
With its history of occupation, apartheid and genocide, Ireland is in a unique position to lead the charge against the occupation of Palestinian land and the crimes of apartheid and genocide that are used to uphold it.
Now is the time to act. And in light of the ICJ’s findings, complacency can only be interpreted as complicity.
Rory O’Donovan (Letters, July 19) is labouring under a number of misapprehensions. It was indeed only conservative politicians who said abortion should be rare; a tiny part of the pro-choice campaign was that, based on the recent liberalisation of abortion law in Portugal, numbers might come down after a while. However, we never said abortion should be rare or anything other than freely available to anyone who needed one.
He is also mistaken to say there were only 4,000 Irish abortions in 2018. There were 4,000 abortions in British clinics where Irish people gave an Irish address.
This does not include Irish people who gave the British address of a friend (possibly thousands), Irish people who got an abortion elsewhere than Britain (possibly thousands), people who illegally ordered abortion pills (possibly thousands), or people who had to give birth against their will (possibly thousands).
In 2018, there may have been 5,000 Irish abortions, or 10,000, or 20,000. We’ll never know, but it’s irrelevant. Anyone who needs an abortion should get one.
We have made progress towards this goal since 2018, with more clinics gradually becoming available.
However, there are still whole swathes of the country where people cannot access abortion, and this inaccessibility is made worse by the patronising three-day wait between first consultation and actually receiving an abortion.
Taoiseach Simon Harris and Health Minister Stephen Donnelly were keen to declare their pro-choice credentials in the last few weeks of repeal; they cannot claim to have made good on those claims until anyone who needs an abortion can get one, free, safe, and legal.
The recent meeting at Chequers between Taoiseach Simon Harris and British prime minister Keir Starmer showed once again the ability of the alcohol industry to advertise their wares at the highest level.
What made it difficult to swallow was the participation of Mr Harris as a former health minister, a man who put so much effort into passing the Public Health Alcohol Bill into law; sadly he did nothing at Chequers to dispel the myth that alcohol is part of our Irish culture. This is not the first time the Taoiseach has given a thumbs up to the alcohol industry, in November 2023 as part of a trade mission to Korea he and others were again party to a PR debacle for the Industry.
A man who constantly challenged the industry on their continuous advertising bombardment of our young people now seems to have become the poster boy for Guinness. As the parents of a young man who died by suicide with alcohol a contributing factor we channelled our support into the Public Health Alcohol Bill but right now Taoiseach we feel betrayed. It’s time you practised what you used to preach.
I’m a Corkman exiled in Waterford for many years and continue to enjoy reading ‘de paper’.
Whilst relaxing in my home last weekend, I heard a tap tap tap on the window.
Imagine my surprise to turn around and see this species perched on the window frame.
I’m told it’s a woodpecker and to give you an idea of its size, the frame is 3 inches high. It stayed long enough to capture it on my iPhone.
It hasn’t been around since
Inheritance tax, is double taxing. It’s punitive and wrong. It’s unjust and unequal.
I worked for 46 years, mostly 12 hour shifts, either days or nights.
My pay was poor and my holidays frugal. I was highly taxed on every penny.
I got nothing free. I have budgeted from the day I was born — and I still do. No meals out. Very occasionally a tea or coffee. No smartphones, iPads, or computer. A film occasionally.
I bought my home 47 years ago and I paid ground tax. I also had to pay a yearly tax, on the house I was paying for.
After a few years, I was given the chance, to buy out the ground yearly rent. I did it, as it was disgraceful that I or any one had to pay a yearly “rent” on a building that cost me so dearly, but I didn’t own the ground it was built on.
The first piece of furniture I bought was an inexpensive mattress — and I was happy with that.
Then very gradually bit by bit, I slowly bought other essential items. No luxuries.
On my day off , I would be sitting at home, having my lunch or dinner of two potatoes, one or two sausages, and some tinned beans, while listening to the radio advertisements from St Vincent De Paul, saying they can’t afford a chicken, they cant afford a turkey, and so on.
I was working 12-hour shifts but I was contented with my sausage and beans. I continued to pay taxes, water rates, property taxes, waste disposal costs, energy costs, maintenance costs. I was and am always budgeting for every cent. I got nothing I worked for or earned.
But now because I worked and lived responsibly, paid and budgeted responsibly, I’m to be penalised.
I won't get home care. If I need to go in to a home care setting, I will have to accept the Unfair Deal, and have a whopping amount of the value of my house taken.
And then to add insult to injury, whoever I leave my property to will have a whopper taken out of the remainder.
And then, because I don’t have a child, the person I leave my property to will also be punished, having to pay property tax. If I had a child, I would have cost the State and taxpayer with maternity benefit, children’s allowance, education, and so forth. But I’m to be punished and my beneficiary, is to be penalised also.
This is totally unjust.
