{"id":79152,"date":"2025-09-22T16:47:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T16:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/79152\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T16:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T16:47:08","slug":"catherine-connolly-disagrees-with-starmer-on-hamas-having-no-role-in-palestinian-state-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/79152\/","title":{"rendered":"Catherine Connolly disagrees with Starmer on Hamas having no role in Palestinian state \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Presidential hopeful Catherine Connolly<\/a> has said she disagrees that Hamas<\/a> can have no role in a future Palestinian<\/a> state, saying this was a matter for Palestinians to decide themselves.<\/p>\n

Ms Connolly <\/b>told BBC Northern Ireland\u2019s Talkback programme how the events of October 7th, 2023 \u2013 when Hamas attacked Israel<\/a>, killing 1,200 people \u2013 were not comparable with the Israeli attacks on Gaza<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Asked about the British prime minister Keir Starmer\u2019s<\/a> recognition of Palestine, which was combined with fresh sanctions on Hamas and a declaration that Hamas could not be involved in the government of Palestine, she said: \u201cI have agreed with sanctions for example on Russia. And I have agreed sanctions on different countries. <\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, we always need a more general discussion and debate on how effective sanctions are and who they\u2019re affecting the most. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd uppermost in my mind is the resignation of [Irish diplomat] Denis Halliday who was in the UN, highly respected man, who, going back, resigned [in 1998] because the sanctions at the time against Iraq were hurting the most vulnerable. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo sanctions is something that we need to look at very, very carefully. <\/p>\n

\u201cHamas is part of the fabric of the Palestinian people, and we \u2013 it\u2019s interesting and really cynical that we never imposed sanctions on Israel, who are carrying out genocide, so we need to have an honest discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about Mr Starmer\u2019s view that Hamas could not be involved in a Palestinian government, she said: \u201cI come from Ireland, a history of colonisation, and I would be very wary of telling a sovereign people how to run their country. The Palestinians must decide in a democratic way who they want to lead their country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if she believed that what happened on October 7th, 2023, whether Hamas could have a role in a future Palestinian state, Ms Connolly said: \u201cWhat happened on October 7th, I\u2019m on record for condemning. But history did not start on October 7th. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to point that out and to look back at history and the many, many atrocities committed by the Israeli government through their army. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Keir Starmer and other countries should be doing is stopping the genocide. Absolutely calling out what it is, genocide, and using our voices to stop it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she would not use the term \u201cgenocide\u201d to refer to the events of October 7th, 2023. <\/p>\n

\u201cGenocide has a very, very specific meaning under international law and the highest international court has said that Israel is carrying out genocide or certainly a very plausible \u2026 What happened on October 7th was wrong, absolutely wrong, but they\u2019re not comparable at all.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Presidential hopeful Catherine Connolly has said she disagrees that Hamas can have no role in a future Palestinian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,53277,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-79152","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-main-news","16":"tag-mainnews","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-palestinian-state","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-topstories","21":"tag-world","22":"tag-world-news","23":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79152","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=79152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}