Sir – Teresa Trainor in her letter ‘Offensive comparison made with Holocaust’ claimed that I made comparisons between the Holocaust crimes against humanity and the Israeli crimes against Palestinians. Anyone can read my letter with the heading; ‘Palestinian-denial is like Holocaust denial’ and see that Teresa grossly distorts and misrepresents with faux indignation what I wrote which was as follows: ‘Joshua Rowe (letter writer) should recognise that Palestinian-denial is like Holocaust denial: A cowardly attempt to excuse the apartheid, ethnic cleansing and colonisation of the native population of the Holy Land.’
I have always condemned those anti-Semites who deny the heinous crimes of the Holocaust and not just for the systematic murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis but the 11 million others ( killed because of their ethnicity, religions, political beliefs, or sexual orientation) which so many, like Teresa, never acknowledge when listing Holocaust crimes. The failure by Ireland back then to accept Jewish and other refugees fleeing the Nazis and DeVelera’s respecting Hitler are embarrassments to many.
Teresa goes on to deny the existence of Israeli apartheid, ethnic cleansing and colonisation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza or the Golan however, never challenges the every-day evidence I have provided or offers any proof to the contrary.
Those who write to counter the criticisms of Israel and its persecution of Palestinians refuse to condemn such atrocities as the murder of 551 Gazan children in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) onslaught of 2014. To those of us who condemn and mourn every life lost in this illegal occupation by Israel; their silence more recently has been deafening in the face of hundreds of unarmed protesters murdered and thousands maimed for life including women, children, press and medics by IDF snipers.
The Israeli fatalities, though much smaller by comparison, are so sad considering that their government continues the use of over-whelming power to enforce the occupation of 50+ years with no attempt at a just and lasting solution respectful of the need for a Palestinian state or an alternative state in which all Muslims, Christians and Jews can be treated equally.
Simon Coveney is very keen to portray himself and government as a friend of Israel by blocking the Trade with Illegal Settlement Bill. I would suggest he remembers the famous quote from Martin Luther King: ‘We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.’
Bob Storey,
Skibbereen.
