It’s possible to be totally accurate in what you say and yet wildly misleading at the same time. There’s a fine example of this in the Letters section of the Irish Times today, which highlights her letter as the ‘Letter of the Day.’
It’s written by a woman called Jane Mahony, who reminds us of the “butchery” in Israel on October 7th, 2023. She writes of how innocent civilians were raped, mutilated, burned and murdered. To the best of my knowledge, that’s exactly what happened, and she’s right to remind those of us who might need reminding. She also condemns the armed and masked Hamas figures who handed over the coffins of a number of Israeli hostages in recent days, while crowds cheered. This, she says, reached new depths of depravity.
It’s at that point that I part ways with Ms Mahony. It’s not uncommon for states and movements to use the dead as part of their propaganda. Patrick Pearse’s ‘The fools, the fools’ oration at the funeral of O’Donovan Rossa, the opening words of the Easter Proclamation, with its reminder of the ‘dead generations from which she [Ireland]receives her old tradition of nationhood,” the thirteen coffins of the Bloody Sunday victims.
I don’t for a moment say that Ms Mahony isn’t entitled to condemn the handing over of coffins accompanied by a show of Hamas strength. It’s called free speech.I do, however, differ from her talk of the “shame and pain” she and many others felt at the Republic of Ireland’s condemnation of Israeli brutality. I also profoundly disagree with her that the handing over of coffins by Hamas plumbed ‘new depths of depravity’.
Some estimate the number of Palestinian corpses in Gaza at 50,000. Other suggest it could be twice that number. The Israeli leader Netanyahu is excited by Trump’s notion of ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the establishment of a Middle East Riviera. Meanwhile, Israeli armed forces trundle tanks onto the West Bank to further pursue their policy of genocide.
So yes, Ms Mahony, October 7 was a terrible and shameful day. But “new depths of depravity”? However horrible, October 7 lasted just one day.Since October 7 2023, Gaza has been reduced to grey rubble, under which who knows how many Palestinian corpses lie festering. Since October 7 2023, Israeli forces have attacked refugee camps, schools, hospitals. It has killed nurses and doctors, journalists and international aid agencies. In recent days it has been bull-dozing Palestinian homes on the West Bank. In short, Israel has been giving a master class in genocide.
Ms Mahony continues: “Ireland is viewed as a global outlier in its attitude to Israel, a stain on our reputation that perversely seems to be a badge of pride to many, not least seemingly the entire political class. It is, however, a source of deep shame and pain to myself and many others”.
The shame and pain should reside with Israel, Ms Mahony. That you try to dodge this obvious fact says something about your idea of morality.
She should take out a Zionist passport in protest and give up her Irish one. That is, presuming she is Irish and does exist.