Letters to the Editor: Time for the State to do the right thing on Gaza
Palestinians gather to receive a hot meal at a food distribution point in the Nuseirat camp for refugees in the central Gaza Strip. Picture: Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty
Can you imagine the horror of waking up this morning to learn that every single child in County Monaghan had been killed?
It would be so shocking to be beyond belief or comprehension.
Tragically, however, this is the same number of children, approximately 15,000, that have already been killed in Gaza over the past 18 months.
Many of these children were less than one year old, and more than 5,000 were under the age of five.
In addition, tens of thousands of children have been severely injured, with Gaza having the largest number of child amputees per capita in the world.
Incredibly, this slaughter of innocent children in Gaza continues every single day right before our eyes, and many now face imminent starvation.
The Israeli prime minister has recently announced his intention to actually intensify the bombing of Gaza, and more than 500 people, mostly innocent women and children, were killed in Gaza in the last week alone.
How this barbarity can continue unabated right before our eyes is the great moral question of our time.
How can the US and leading Arab States sit down to lavish dinners, and make multi-billion dollar deals, while this slaughter is taking place next door?
How can the European Union be so ineffective in directly challenging Israel’s atrocities in Gaza? What is the international community afraid of?
And what of Ireland’s role?
The Government has certainly said all the right things, and has to be commended for this.
However, now is the time to do the right things.
Yes, the Government has recognised the State of Palestine and joined South Africa’s Genocide case against Israel at the ICJ.
These are positive and commendable actions.
However, it has clearly failed to make concrete progress on a range of leading issues within its own direct jurisdiction, issues where thousands of Irish people are constantly calling for action. For example, the Hovernment has, to date, failed to:
- Enact the Occupied Territories Bill (amended or otherwise);
- Halt the sale of Israel War Bonds through the Central Bank of Ireland;
- Prohibit the use of Shannon Airport as a transit point for the transport of arms to Israel.
To say that these are complex issues is an unacceptable argument.
Ireland has both the competence and capacity to effectively deal with these issues in a judicious manner, provided there is the political will to do so.
As a former senior official in the United Nations, and having worked with national governments in many countries, I am keenly aware that once a government decides to take action in a specific priority area, the resources will be allocated, solutions found, and the seemingly impossible quickly achieved.
I therefore implore the Government to put hesitation and excessive deliberations aside and take immediate action to address the above points.
The children of Gaza desperately need outside intervention right now, to relieve their terror and halt this ongoing slaughter.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas’s announcement of the review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement is welcomed.
With extensive evidence of Israel’s atrocity crimes already documented by the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and others, the only logical conclusion can be that the Israeli government is in breach of Article 2, the human rights clause of the Agreement.
As Israel’s biggest trading partner, the EU must use this leverage and put pressure on Israel to halt its brutal military assault on Gaza and the forced starvation of the Palestinian population.
The EU also has clear legal obligations to do so, resulting from the July 2024 ICJ advisory opinion.
Even if, after the review, consensus is still lacking amongst all EU member states to suspend the agreement, the EU can still suspend the trade pillar with a qualified voting majority.
On Tuesday, the UN warned that approximately 14,000 babies will die if aid does not reach them in 48 hours.
The protection of human rights is not optional, it is based in international law and the EU’s founding values.
The EU must act now before it’s too late.
While it is welcome news that European politicians have finally grown a backbone and spoken out against the forced starvation of the Palestinian population of Gaza, it is still only rhetoric.
What is galling is that their threshold for outrage seems completely out of kilter with the requirements of international law to which they constantly refer, albeit in a tokenistic way.
Where was their outrage at the targeted killing of journalists, medical workers, and the sniping of civilians, including children, by the Israel?
All of this has been happening since the beginning of the assault on Gaza following the atrocities of October 7.
All of these are in direct contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and the tenets of international humanitarian law.
Despite this, and the immediate threat of mass starvation and ethnic cleansing, all we have is hand wringing and threats of review of trade agreements.
The time has long passed that Israel be held to account in the same way as any other nation that expects to be treated on equal terms on the international stage.
The Holocaust understandably casts a long shadow over how Europe engages with Israel, but the resultant hesitancy of Europe’s reaction to the horror of Gaza is at a huge cost to innocent Palestinian civilians.
It is a cost that will cast another long shadow into the future.
The EU “review” of the Israel trade agreement is a pathetically timid and grossly inadequate response to the systematic ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
Indeed, it bears all the hallmarks of gesture politics designed to insulate the EU establishment from culpability in the light of historical reflection.
The criminal perpetrators will have successfully completed their heinous objective before the “review” has been undertaken.
No wonder Netanyahu is proceeding with the wanton slaughter and deliberate starvation of an entire population without the slightest concern.
The Taoiseach is correct in saying that the agreement should be suspended.
Indeed, all diplomatic relations should be paused.
Sanctions equal to those imposed on Russia should be applied immediately.
There can be no room for double standards.
I note that Social Democrat TD Aidan Farrell, who is his party’s spokesman for children, equality, and youth, was to table a bill seeking to reduce the voting age in Ireland from 18 to 16. Such a proposal receives a definitive no from me.
May I humbly suggest to the Social Democrats that the party would start getting involved in issues that actually really matter?
The debate about Ireland’s defence and our ability to uphold same continues.
There is some evidence that the recommendations of the Defence Forces Review 2024 will be implemented on the basis of achieving Level of Ambition (LoA) 2-plus (even LoA 3-minus) over a period of time.
Nobody can realistically expect this to be achieved in the short term, it is a costly process.
It is, however, important that this issue remains in the public domain as more than a hypothetical situation.
The notion of sovereignty, by definition, implies the means to defend the interests of the nation.
In these volatile times, this becomes more important and should not be long-fingered any longer.
US president Donald Trump’s false attack on South Africa seems to be based on a video of people calling for attacks on the farmers.
If a video is the basis for condemning a country, what about the videos of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol building?
Another poor treatment of a country’s leader.
I love all the new trees that have been planted around Mahon.
Unfortunately, someone else clearly doesn’t.
Someone decided to destroy several of them.
Two trees were ripped out and cracked, and at least three were burnt down — all in the Ashwood area.
All of the new infrastructure is really contributing to the positive development of the Mahon area.
I have lived here for many years, and the recent development has really transformed the area into something amazing.
I would really hate to regress to how it used to be, but it seems like it is already starting to happen.
