Sir
Your headline “Israeli ambassador refutes President Higgins’ remarks” (28 October) suggests a misunderstanding of the meaning of “refute”.
The Oxford Dictionary claims that to refutes is a transitive verb meaning “to prove falsity or error of (statement, argument, etc.), rebut , or repel by argument.
The Ambassador has not done so. President Higgins following the example of Eamon de Valera and the best of Irish leaders since 1919 and has been a consistent champion of peace and liberty for all mankind.
Elected in a landslide victory (“regarded on all sides as a plebiscite” according to London’s TIMES)
dedicated to establishing a sovereign, democratic, all-Ireland Republic, in December 1918, the following month de Valera voiced the opinion that the Versailles Treaty was a recipe for renewed war.
At the League of Nations in 1932 Dev demanded that all the signatories to its covenant should honour it and employ effective sanctions on Japan (an ally of Britain at the time) for the seizure of Manchuria from China.
When Jews in Germany were stripped of their civil rights by the Nuremburg Decrees in 1935 de Valera publicly denounced the decrees.
Ireland’s Chief Rabbi and most Jews in Ireland supported our Republic from its inception in 1919 and
was a personal friend of de valera, sheltering in his home when the British were looking from him.
Rabbi Herzog became Chief Rabbi of Palestine and his son and grandson became Presidents of
Israel.
There were no elections nor plebiscites in Palestine in 1918 nor after and even those Palestinians
deemed Israeli citizen are no better off today than were Jews in Germany on the Nuremberg decrees.
Not all Irish institutions agreed with Ireland’s most elected and best loved leader.
The West British IRISH TIMES if February 1933 warned of the dire consequences if Dev and
Fianna Fail were returned to power.
In March 1933 it exulted in the accession to power in Berlin of Herr Hitler.
The Right Wing, renegade ex-Republican BLUE SHIRTS condemned de Valera for speaking up
for Germany’s Jews.
In 1936, again at the League of Nations, De Valera supported Haile Selassie’s demand for support
against Mussolini’s rape of Abyssinia. Dev was ready to commit Irish troops to a League Force
to defend Abyssinia. Anthony Eden condemned Dev as a “Firebrand”. But England made Mussolini
Pay – into the Coffers of the British-owned Suez Cana Company, for passage of troops and
materiel. And In Ireland the BLUE SHIRTS voiced their support of “Catholic Italy.”
All human beings have rights and responsibilities. As it happens I don’t know any Arabs.
But I have worked and partied with Jewish friends. Good, decent human beings. I have many Moslem
neighbours, and atheists who rub shoulders in civilised co-operation. They all deserve better than than to be sucked into a conflict by the current Israeli regime.
That regime appears bent on genocide which will set communities at reach others’ throats across the world for centuries if it doesn’t spark a nuclear destruction of all life on the planet.
Yours sincerely
Donal Kennedy
London
The above letter was addressed to THE IRISH POST (London) last week. I hope they publish ot this week.
Donal Kennedy