Sir, – We should thank Alan Shatter for highlighting the tremendous work of a broad cross-section of Irish civil society – all Opposition parties, numerous legal experts, dozens of human rights organisations and thousands of street activists – that has compelled the Government to admit that the Occupied Territories Bill must finally be enacted (Letters, November 5th).
However, Mr Shatter’s position is hardly more credible than that of the Coalition parties that have blocked the Bill throughout the four-year tenure of their Government, and are now engaging in what Mr Shatter accurately describes as “party political tendering on the eve of the general election”.
Mr Shatter claims to long for a time when “building blocks lead ultimately to Israeli and Palestinian states living side by side in peace, security and harmony with the support of a majority of Israelis and Palestinians”.
But as a perennial commentator, he has refused to condemn the Israeli state’s illegal colonial settlements, and has used his platform to insist that “the settlements are not the obstacle to a resolution of all of this” (“Shatter claims ‘apartheid’ over Palestinians a ‘big lie’”, News, April 5th, 2022).
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It is absurd that Mr Shatter characterises a letter signed by the 28 separate human rights organisations and trade unions, calling for the enactment of the Occupied Territories Bill, as “selective fact” and “complexity avoidance”, while himself refusing to acknowledge what even the US State Department denounces as “increasing extremist settler violence in the West Bank” by “extremist settlers who damaged property, assaulted civilians, and released dogs to attack residents . . . killed livestock, attacked homes, and set fire to vehicles”.
People of conscience must continue to demand the immediate enactment of the Occupied Territories Bill.
An end to Ireland’s complicity in the Israeli state’s grotesque war crimes cannot come soon enough. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN Ó ÉIGEARTAIGH,
Donnybrook,
Dublin 4.
Sir, – Alan Shatter’s letter of November 5th makes proposals for a lasting peace between Israel and Palestine, and refers to the “building blocks” required to achieve this goal.
However, he fails to mention the building blocks used in the construction of the illegal settlements in the West Bank, where it is estimated that 700,000 Israeli settlers now reside.
These settlers live in 300 settlements and outposts and are deemed illegal under international humanitarian law as it amounts to the transfer by Israel of its civilian population into the territories it occupies.
Perhaps if his argument included proposals to remedy this situation, he could be taken seriously. – Yours, etc,
CYRIL O’NEILL,
Edenderry,
Co Offaly.