Israelis have libelled the people of Ireland

My new Palestinian flag is on order and will replace the bedraggled flag that has been battered, torn and wrecked by storms in the past year. The flag is a microcosm that poorly reflects the state of Gaza which has been blown to smithereens by the Israeli Attack Forces. More than 45,000 dead, men, women and children (not counting perhaps thousands more buried under the rubble of destroyed cities and towns), hundreds of thousands on the verge of forced starvation and hundreds of thousands more bereaved and bereft, mourning loved ones. The people of Israel have supported this slaughter as a response to the Hamas attack on ordinary decent people on October 7, 2023 when over 1,200 innocents, according to Israel, were put to the sword and hundreds were taken hostage.

It was not a surprise that Israel retaliated. Hamas and indeed the world would have expected that. What was a surprise was the unforgiving and bitter reaction of the Israeli government, with the support of many of the Israeli people, to the unremitting prosecution of the war by the Israeli Attack Forces. The justification for the brutality was the determination to eliminate Hamas. The end result has been to generate hundreds of thousands more martyrs to the Hamas cause and greatly undermined, if not completely destroyed, Israel’s standing in the world community.

There remains doubt that the ceasefire will take effect (it was supposed to come into operation last Sunday). Already the Israeli spin doctors have been out suggesting that Hamas has reneged on the deal but Israel’s reliability on the world stage has been so damaged that few believe what they have to say. The Israeli National Security Minister has threatened to resign if Israel ratifies the ceasefire, but there is nothing new in that and Netanyahu and the Israeli parliament have little room to manoeuvre. They have little choice if they want the hostages to be returned. The hostages, those still alive, have been used as pawns, not just by Hamas but by Netanyahu, who has shown scant regard for their safety.

Despite the current negative spin as I write, I expect that the ceasefire will come into effect and that the new pristine Palestinian flag will fly here. I have been critical of Joe Biden because of his continued kowtowing to Netanyahu and because he failed to use the power the US wields to bring the war to an end sooner but he is now entitled to some credit for getting a deal done.

Qatar and Egypt are not known as world powers but they have played a key role in securing this ceasefire and they too are deserving of credit. In the face of so many setbacks, lesser powers might well have left both Israel and Gaza to sort it out between themselves with even more disastrous consequences.

And so to the consequences for Ireland/Israel relations. It’s a minor detail when viewed against the slaughter that has taken place but when the standing of Ireland’s President is called into question by the Israeli propaganda machine it is time the Irish Government took a stand. Michael D Higgins has been forceful in his condemnations of Israel’s brutal war. He was equally forceful in his condemnation of the Hamas attack on the innocent Israeli civilians on October 7. He called, on numerous occasions, for the killing, on both sides, to stop. He has not said anything that the Irish government and many other world leaders have not said.

But his condemnation has, for some reason, drawn the anger of Israel and unfortunately people of the Jewish faith in this country have felt it necessary to come to the defence of Israel. Michael D Higgins has not an anti-Semitic bone in his body and yet he is being accused of anti-Semitism and it is being suggested that he is not a worthy person to deliver the keynote speech at the Holocaust Day Memorial in a few weeks’ time.

The President has delivered the keynote speech at the commemoration on a number of occasions in the past. But now, because he has dared to question Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza, he suddenly becomes a leper, if not a Hitler, in the eyes of some Irish Jews.

It is to be expected that some Jews would take exception to some of the President’s utterances but when the Chairman of the Jewish Representative Council in Ireland, Maurice Cohen, suggests that Jews in this country would prefer that Mr Higgins would not give the keynote speech this year and when Ireland’s chief rabbi, Yuni Weider, objects to Mr Higgins’ presence at the event because of his failure to acknowledge the “scourge of anti-Semitism in Ireland”, then it time to challenge this further libel on the people of Ireland. Oliver Sears, a spokesman for Holocaust Ireland Awareness, joined in the fray to accuse President Higgins of “grave insensitivity” to Irish Jews because of his condemnations of Israel’s conduct of the war.

Maybe Mr Higgins has made some anti-Jewish comments that I am not aware of. Maybe he is a closet anti-Semite but it seems to me that Mr Higgins has suddenly been branded, along with the Irish people, of being anti-Semitic because he dared to utter a criticism of Israel. Criticism of the state of Israel, criticism of the government of Israel, criticism of the prime Minister of Israel does not equate to anti-Semitism. It does not make Irish people Holocaust deniers.

On a less contentious note we have or will shortly have a new government. We will have Micheál Martin as our Taoiseach for the next three years. We will have sound Independents supporting the Government and we will have the Healy-Raes. Michael Healy-Rae, it appears, will be junior Minister at the Department of Agriculture. His senior Minister in that Department will, understandably, be nervous but, for the plain people of Ireland, they will have a champion in the plain speaking Michael Healy-Rae.

Leaving aside his Kerry bias and his desire to channel enormous amounts of cash into the Kingdom, his past utterances would suggest that we will, at long last, have a politician who will bring common sense to the workings of government. Michael has an understanding of what ordinary people want. I don’t exactly agree with his view on drinking and driving but he has a point about people being able to have a pint or two before driving home from their local. I feel he will be sympathetic to the drinking man and it will come as a surprise if he does not put an end to this proposal for yet another increase in the price of the pint. The government is not yet in office and the first thing they do is increase the price of the plain man’s pint. There was a time when cost was not a factor so long as there was plenty of Guinness available. But that day is long gone. Gone with the thousands of publicans who got out of the business?

We all know that it does not pay farmers to grow vegetables. Maybe Healy Rae might bring back the vegetable grower and the milkman. There was a time when a cow would walk placidly alongside a farmer when he put a halter on her. Nowadays a halter would send cows into paroxysms of passion and they would bucklep all the fields in the seven parishes. Cows have grown so used to the milking machines that they would kick the bucket if a farmer tried to draw milk by hand from them. It’s time we got back to basics and Healy-Rae could be the man to lead the farming revival.

Thought for the Day 

As we express our gratitude we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

John F Kennedy