{"id":120599,"date":"2026-05-19T05:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T05:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/120599\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T05:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T05:15:08","slug":"criticising-israel-for-its-actions-in-gaza-does-not-make-us-anti-semitic-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/120599\/","title":{"rendered":"Criticising Israel for its actions in Gaza does not make us anti-Semitic \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sir, \u2013 In the week the outrageous comments<\/a> of former taoiseach Bertie Ahern<\/a> received necessary attention, a regular commentator on these pages, Oliver Sears, was again given considerable space to promote the falsehood that Ireland is racist toward the Jewish people. It is not. <\/p>\n

Mr Sears\u2019s article (\u201cBoycott is a pernicious strategy silencing Jews, Israelis and Palestinians<\/a>,\u201d Opinion, May 16th) displays his standard avoidance of the central truth that Ireland\u2019s limp and unconvincing challenge to the state of Israel<\/a> has nothing to do with the religious beliefs of its 2,500 Jewish citizens. <\/p>\n

There are plenty among our Jewish community who are just as appalled as those Irish of other faiths, and none, who see it as their duty to protest against the genocide Israel is conducting against the people of Palestine<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The state of Israel has breached international law for decades. Most egregiously, its campaign in Gaza<\/a>, now into its third year, involves the deliberate killing of the civilian population through bombing and starvation. The Fourth Geneva Convention forbids targeting civilians and collective punishment. <\/p>\n

The respected Israeli lawyer, Michael Sfard, recently put it this way: \u201cThe permissiveness with which Israel is able to act \u2013 both domestically and internationally \u2013 is not just enabling what they\u2019re doing, but unfolding horrific events that we thought we\u2019d never see\u201d. <\/p>\n

Mr Sears should understand that what concerns Irish people is the impunity with which Israel is allowed to behave as it does, with complete disregard for the rights of Palestinians. \u2013 Yours, etc,<\/p>\n

FINTAN DRURY,<\/p>\n

Strand Road,<\/p>\n

Dublin 4.<\/p>\n

Sir, \u2013 Oliver Sears characterises the reaction of the audience to Boy George\u2019s appearance on The Late Late Show<\/a> as \u201cthe classic behaviour of the bystander\u201d, the people who may not have participated in the Holocaust, but did not speak out against it.<\/p>\n

But there is another possible interpretation of their silence.<\/p>\n

They may simply have had the courtesy and sensitivity not to throw oil on the flames being fanned by the singer\u2019s naive confusion of anti-Semitism with disgust at the state of Israel\u2019s slaughter of Palestinians. \u2013 Yours, etc,<\/p>\n

DAVID MCKENNA,<\/p>\n

Dublin 8.<\/p>\n

Sir, \u2013 I am puzzled. I understood that Ireland had decided to boycott the Eurovision Song Contest<\/a> in protest as Israel was participating. Yet our \u201cpublic service broadcaster\u201d, RT\u00c9<\/a>, which had stated it would not participate in or broadcast the event, had a reporter reporting on the event from Vienna all week. Why? \u2013 Yours, etc,<\/p>\n

JANE O\u2019REILLY,<\/p>\n

Rathfarnham,<\/p>\n

Dublin 14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir, \u2013 In the week the outrageous comments of former taoiseach Bertie Ahern received necessary attention, a regular…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[41248,26026,2254,37,41249,498,36320],"class_list":["post-120599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-bertie-ahern","tag-eurovision","tag-gaza-strip","tag-israel","tag-late-late-show","tag-palestine","tag-rte"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116599542461792578","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}