Letters to the Editor: Readers respond to the attacks on Israel, and on Gaza in Palestine
A Palestinian woman weeps as bodies of people killed in overnight Israeli shelling arrive for their funerals in Khan Yunis on Tuesday.
However, the EU suspending all aid to the Palestinian people as is threatened and an EU Commissioner attempting to act unilaterally in that regard is not going to help in any way. In fact, it will prolong suffering and hardship — Ireland should resist this.
In years gone by, media outlets often repeated the UN’s prediction that the Gaza Strip would be “unliveable” by 2020. That year has come and gone, and this damning indictment of global political inaction was quietly dropped.
Enacting this legislation is simply doing the decent thing. Then, perhaps our political leaders can mourn fatalities and condemn atrocities with credibility and a clear conscience.
I’ve spent more than 30 years with UN peacekeeping operations.
There are two sides to each story. Unfortunately.
The solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is for the people of the world to share the wealth of the world. We are all born naked, wealth-less, and free from ideology, but wealth subsequently attaches itself to us through inheritance or privilege.
Particularly, the disparity of life chances and conditions leads to resentment and conflict. Private ownership of the means of production, markets, profits, and the commodification of everything has had its day. That system has created the world we live in today, but a continuance will now destroy the world, as it is now in the Middle East, Yemen, Ukraine, etc. To create peace, we have to share the wealth of the world to meet the needs of all people and maintain the health of the environment. The needs of investment firms and all profiteering should be banished to history.
At this truly dreadful moment, may I bring the remarks of Justice Robert Jackson, on opening the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg on November 21, 1945, to the attention of the leaders of Israel.
“…That great nations…stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that power has ever paid to civilization.”
The inevitable result of the repression and dispossession of a people in their own land has produced this latest chapter in the Gaza/Israeli tragedy.
Ireland knows well that a violated people will resist until their oppressor exterminates them or compromises. It’s Groundhog Day again.
Why did the Irish Examiner headline the article about Mary Lou McDonald’s response with a quote about Israel? She, almost uniquely, criticised both parties in the weekend’s action. She, correctly, criticised Hamas and Israel for their approach to the problems in the area. She suggested the only solution is to talk, despite the fact that Israel’s actions have been, since the beginning, illegal.
The media has a responsibility to report both sides of any actions.
