Letters to the Editor: Central Bank must halt issuance of Israeli Bonds

'The Government has an undeniable responsibility to act to ensure this country is not complicit in genocide'
Letters to the Editor: Central Bank must halt issuance of Israeli Bonds

Pro-Palestine protesters gather outside Government Buildings in Dublin. Picture: GrĂĄinne NĂ­ Aodha/PA

The Central Bank’s current approval of Israeli genocide-funding bonds ends on September 1. 

As we witness the forced starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza, displacement of 800,000 people from Northern Gaza, daily bombardment, and the relentless murder of children and adults, we call on the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) to do the absolute minimum required under international law — stop funding genocide, do not renew the State of Israel Bonds Issuance programme on September 2.

Israeli Bonds fund the genocide in Gaza, the illegal occupation of Palestinian territories and the apartheid regime in Israel.

Enabling their sale in the EU is morally reprehensible and in violation of international law.

The recent report on Israeli Bonds from the joint oireachtas finance committee affirmed that the CBI, as an organ of this state, must comply with international law. 

It recommended that “due diligence is discharged by the CBI including appropriate consideration of national and international law”.

It rejected as “ill-founded” the view of CBI governor that the Genocide Convention does not apply to the CBI. It further recommended that “the central bank take all possible steps available to it to suspend the offer of the prospectus under obligations to ‘prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories’ as outlined in the ICJ opinion of July 2024”.

In addition, the Prospectus Regulation (Article 88, Preamble) sets out clearly that it is to be interpreted and applied in accordance with the rights and principles of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. 

Clearly aiding the funding of genocide, apartheid and occupation is in direct violation of this.

The Government has an undeniable responsibility to act to ensure this country is not complicit in genocide. 

The International Court of Justice (Bosnia V Serbia, 2007) made clear that a state is complicit if “its organs were aware that genocide was about to be committed or was under way, and if the aid and assistance supplied
 to the perpetrators of the criminal acts
 enabled or facilitated the commission of the acts”.

We call on the CBI not to renew approval for Israeli genocide-funding bonds.

We call on the Government to direct the CBI not to renew approval of Israeli bonds. 

This shameful chapter in our nation’s history must end now.

ZoĂ« Lawlor, chairperson, IPSC; Owen Reidy, general secretary, ICTU; John Boyle, general secretary, INTO; Martin Walsh, president, Forsa; Éamonn Meehan, chair, Sadaka-the Ireland Palestine Alliance; Caroline Murphy, CEO, ComhlĂĄmh; Katie Martin, coordinator, Afri; Stephen McCloskey, director, Centre for Global Education; Thomas McDonagh, director, Financial Justice Ireland; David Landy, Jews for Palestine (Ireland); Cian O’Callaghan, TD, leader, Social Democrats; Ivana Bacik, TD, leader, The Labour Party; Paul Murphy, TD, People Before Profit; Mary Lou McDonald, TD, leader, Sinn FĂ©in; Roderic O’Gorman, TD, leader, The Green Party; Alice-Mary Higgins, senator; Frances Black, senator; Munir Nuseibah, professor of international law, Al-Quds University; Des Geraghty, former president of Siptu and former director of the Central Bank; Zak Hania, Gaza genocide survivor; Salah Altanany, Gaza genocide survivor; Eman Mohammed, Palestinian photojournalist; David Hickey, Dubs for Palestine; Angy Skuse, Irish Healthcare Workers for Palestine; Rebecca O’Keeffe, Irish Sport for Palestine; Ian McArdle, DGS, CWU; Rosi Leonard, CATU; Kieron Connolly, Bray Council of Trade Unions; Finn Geaney, Dublin Council of Trade Unions; Rebeccah Heslin, Psychologist for Palestine; Mags O’Brien, Trade Union Friends of Palestine; Leigh Brosnan, Irish Lawyers for Palestine; Conall Ó Dufaigh, Teachers for Palestine; Jim Roche, PRO, Irish Anti-War Movement; SeĂĄn Ó Briain, ComhlĂĄmh — Justice for Palestine; Jacinta O’Keeffe, Cycles for Palestine; Gregor Kerr, INTO Palestine Ambassadors Group; Roisin Cronin, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Branch, FORSA; Marie Sherlock, TD; Gary Gannon, TD; Ruth Coppinger, TD; Donna Cooney, Green Party; Adrian Kane, Siptu; Talha Alali, psychotherapist; Maeve Higgins, writer; Betty Purcell, former Human Rights Commission; Gary Daly, solicitor; Jessica Traynor, poet; Áine Hayden, poet; Bridget Kiely, GP; Laura Cooke, GP; Imelda Donovan, Fermoy Stands with Palestine; Nora Tennyson, North Cork Palestine Solidarity Group; Kate O’Connell, Fermoy and Mallow Against Division; Anne Stewart, IPSC (North) Wicklow; Aisling McGovern, Swords Stands for Palestine; Mary Sheridan, Balbriggan Palestine Solidarity; Tara King, Drogheda Stands with Palestine; Patrick Keegan, TCD BDS; Brian O’Boyle, ATU; Harun Sikjak, Academics for Palestine; Vincent Doherty, singer; Matthew Thorton, Palestine activist; Marnie Holborow, IAWM; Mary Brennan, EU official (retired); Dorothy Morrissey, EU official ((retired); Helen Mahony, coordinator, IPSC Stop Funding Genocide Campaign

Nato in Warsaw Pact countries

The following extract is taken from your editorial on the conflict in Ukraine — ‘Unsettling echo of dark time in history’ ( Irish Examiner, August 23): “Ending the Russian invasion, parleying with Vladimir Putin and finding a way out of the most severe foreign policy crisis for nearly 90 years will require considerable expertise and ringcraft.”

Considering the stakes involved for Ukraine, the US, and certain European states, including Ireland, the word statecraft, might I suggest, be more appropriate than ringcraft; an knockout will be existential event for the protagonists, including Ireland, and not just a temporary loss of consciousness.

I wish to disagree with the 90 years comparison; I am old enough to remember the nuclear war close shave arising from the 1962 Cuban missile crisis involving the US and the former Russian-led Soviet Union and which, interestingly, has close parallels with what’s happening in Ukraine, ie, the Soviet Union placed nuclear missiles in Cuba in proximity to the borders of the US following the lead of the US which had placed nuclear missiles in Turkey in proximity to the borders of the Soviet Union.

US ambassador Adlai Stevenson, far right, describes aerial photographs of launching sites for intermediate range missiles in Cuba during an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council, on October 25, 1962, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Picture: AP
US ambassador Adlai Stevenson, far right, describes aerial photographs of launching sites for intermediate range missiles in Cuba during an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council, on October 25, 1962, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Picture: AP

The Soviet Union’s reciprocal missile action gravely offended the US’s overwhelming sense of entitlement and the US took umbrage to the extent that the world was brought very close to a nuclear war. 

Thank your lucky stars you were given the chance to come into existence.

The US president seems to have grasped the enormous folly and existential danger to the US of the US’s exploitation of the circumstances arising from the dissolution of the former Soviet Union in the 1990s and the changing of the US-led Nato from mainly defensive to belligerent posture and the opportunistic expansion of Nato into what were former Warsaw Pact countries adjoining and in close proximity to the borders of Russia; the conflict in Ukraine can be viewed as a reckless and unconscionable attempt to continue the US’s expansion posture to the endangerment of Russia and Russia’s strategic ally China.

A long lasting peaceful solution to the conflict in Ukraine as the US president now seems to understand is a return to the original status quo of Nato, ie, the position before the latter’s aggressive and reckless expansion into what were former Warsaw Pact countries.

Micheál Ó Cathail

DĂșn Laoghaire Co Dublin

Ryan’s step down

As a Limerick person, it is so so sad to see Pat Ryan step down. A man of dignity and humility. If he was on the field Cork would have won.

Pat and his team are amateurs and dedicated to club and county. It would have been more dignified if Cork County Board said to Pat. 

Take care of yourself. Take time. No need to rush this decision.

Come back in a few months. Pat, deserved better.

Tony O’Gorman

Limerick

Logic of triple lock

The remarks of health minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill in respect of the triple-lock mechanism at the weekend warrant discussion, as they illustrate the illogical basis of the Government’s position.

Firstly, there exists no provision in international law for the establishment of peacekeeping missions that are not sanctioned by — or that do not support the implementation of — a United Nations resolution.

That the Government has not been able to give one example of a non-UN backed ‘peacekeeping’ mission that Irish soldiers might be deployed to proves the point.

Secondly, Ms Carroll MacNeill’s critique of the UN Security Council for not sanctioning a peacekeeping mission since 2014 is a valid one.

Of course, this critique rings hollow when one considers that the Defence Forces were forced to withdraw, in 2023, from the last UN peacekeeping mission we joined — UNDOF in 2013 — specifically due to the Defence Forces’ lack of overseas capacity.

If there are further UN peacekeeping, or non-UN ‘peacekeeping’, missions then who exactly are the government going to deploy; given successive Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil defence ministers have presided over the erosion of the Defence Forces’ capabilities?

There is also another, more fundamental issue at play.

The seemingly endless display of countries — including very large ones like the US and Russia — acting unilaterally and doing their own thing on the international stage has undoubtedly made the world a less safe, less stable, and more chaotic place in recent years.

However, in seeking to resile from the UN and its processes — however imperfect — the government are, in their own small way, also acting to ‘go it alone’, further undermining the multilateral, rules-based international order that must prevail to — as the UN Charter states — “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”.

Joe Lynch

Ballincollig, Cork

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