{"id":603902,"date":"2026-07-25T17:33:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T17:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/603902\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T17:33:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T17:33:13","slug":"reactionary-israeli-ministers-have-fascist-gaza-agenda-says-ex-who-official-mike-ryan-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/603902\/","title":{"rendered":"Reactionary Israeli ministers have \u2018fascist\u2019 Gaza agenda, says ex-WHO official Mike Ryan \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Right-wing members of the Israeli<\/a> cabinet are \u201cfascist bastards\u201d because of their actions against Gaza<\/a>, former senior World Health Organisation (WHO) official, Mike Ryan<\/a> has said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have many Palestinian friends. I have many Israeli friends. And they\u2019re not warmongers, those Israeli friends. They\u2019re not genocide maniacs. A small section of their leadership are fascist bastards,\u201d he told the Patrick MacGill Summer School on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The Israeli attacks upon Gaza will guarantee future violence, he told the Glenties summer school in Co Donegal, saying that violence \u201cnever ends in peace; the aftermath of violence is nearly always more violence. We\u2019ll see that through the decades as we go on. For example, in Palestine, we have a whole generation of children who see nothing but death and see nothing but violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter what resolution comes, they\u2019re not going to go back to school, and everything is fine, forget about everything. They\u2019re going to be traumatised by that.\u201d <\/p>\n

Urging states to find peaceful ways of existing, the former executive director of the WHO<\/a>\u2019s health emergencies programme said he had to believe after working \u201cin the United Nations system for 30 years\u201d in co-operation and collective security.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the height of the Cold War, when people had their fingers on nuclear buttons, and we were going through the Cuban Missile Crisis and into the \u201960s, and yet we eradicated smallpox,\u201d he told the audience. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe greatest single feat in the history of medicine and the history of human health. And it was Russian vaccine production with American resources and doctors and nurses from all over the world who came together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calling for a more sophisticated understanding of international relations, Ryan acknowledged that many people in the West and elsewhere are afraid of the rise of China.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey [the Chinese] have a long history of resentments for the humiliations that they have suffered. We need to acknowledge that, we need to work with them because the reality is they\u2019re the most powerful economy in the world,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are afraid of China now because they have nuclear weapons and they\u2019re aggressive and they\u2019re expansionist. Well, the United States has nuclear weapons and it\u2019s expansionist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, at the same event, former Department of Health secretary general Rober Watt<\/a> said parts of Dublin were a \u201csource of embarrassment\u201d to many who live there.<\/p>\n

\"DublinDublin Regeneration Authority chief executive Robert Watt: ‘My big idea is that we need to liberate local government.’ <\/p>\n

He argued the State\u2019s local authorities should get borrowing powers and rights to raise extra local taxes, while some should be merged to act more efficiently.<\/p>\n

Calling for a public debate on local government, Watt noted that local authorities accounted for just one-tenth of all the State\u2019s spending. \u201cHalf of that revenue is centrally provided. Even the half which is local, local government has very little control over many of the rules about how they collect that,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy big idea is that we need to liberate local government. I think we need to give them more functions. I think they need to get more financing, local financing, the power to raise more money locally. They need to be able to borrow.\u201d <\/p>\n

Talented local officials were close to the problems in their communities, he said and should be given more trust. <\/p>\n

Currently, many of them are \u201ccompletely hamstrung by the lack of funding, by their inability to borrow, by rules and regulations\u201d, said Watt, who was recently appointed as the chief executive of the Dublin Regeneration Authority.<\/p>\n

A key part of his new role will be to lead a rebirth in the fortunes of Dublin<\/a>\u2019s main thoroughfare, O\u2019Connell Street, which has fallen sharply into decline<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dublin city centre, he said, had been in decline for some time. \u201cAnd frankly, for those of us who live in the city or visit the city or work there, parts of it is a source of embarrassment.\u201d <\/p>\n

O\u2019Connell Street \u201cwas a fantastic boulevard, and people compare it to some of the more famous boulevards across Europe, and it was a fantastic street to be proud of, and it\u2019s beautiful architecture. But it has gone into decline … So I think we\u2019re determined that we will fix it.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Right-wing members of the Israeli cabinet are \u201cfascist bastards\u201d because of their actions against Gaza, former senior World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,52,18,13,14,6,19,17,71,11,12,15,16,167553,5,72,79866,7,8],"class_list":["post-603902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-dublin","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-israel","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-mike-ryan","tag-news","tag-palestine","tag-robert-watt","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116981819443369689","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}