Sir, – Oliver Sears assertion that a boycott of Israel feeds anti-Semitism does not hold water ("Cultural boycott of Israel feeds anti-Semitism", Opinion, November 8th).
As with Sally Rooney, the many artists, musicians and scientists who support the boycott have been very specific in identifying the reasons, eg, the discrimination, the house demolitions, the subjection of Palestinian children to military law (unlike their Israeli counterparts), unlawful killings, land seizure, and humiliation, fear and violence at the scores of military checkpoints dotted throughout occupied Palestine.
If that isn’t a form of apartheid, I don’t know what is. While Mr Sears makes a valid point in promoting caution in the face of rising bigotry, nonetheless a balanced view is called for. – Yours, etc,
DAVID MURPHY,
Clonskeagh,
Dublin 14.
Sir, – Like Oliver Sears, (Opinion, November 8th) I too believe that most Jewish people in Ireland are relatively unscathed by anti-Semitism, even though from time to time I have been racially targeted as a “Jewess” for my anti-racist politics.
Like Mr Sears, and as a citizen of Israel and Ireland, I too have vocally endorsed Irish civil society’s fervent support for the Palestinian cause. However, though I am greatly concerned by anti-Semitism – I have published several academic works about Irish anti-Semitism – I refuse to stop speaking about Palestine by speaking instead about anti-Semitism whenever Israel accelerates its assault on Palestinian civil society.
Only recently Israel’s defence minister Benny Ganz designated six Palestinian human rights NGOs as “terrorist organisations”. This was followed by a military order outlawing them in the West Bank.
Apart from the fact that the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid identified “Persecution of organisations and persons, by depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms, because they oppose apartheid” as one of the inhuman acts committed by an apartheid state, outlawing these organisations will leave many Palestinian children, women, prisoners, farmers, with no protection, and put their employees at great risk.
Remembering the Holocaust remains hugely important as Mr Sears says. I consider it equally important to oppose the colonisation of Palestine by the apartheid state of Israel and call on Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney to do more than express concern and move to sanctioning Israel.
– Yours, etc,
RONIT LENTIN,
Cornmarket,
Dublin 8.