Sir, – Oliver Sears's letter (March 8th) criticising those who call for RTÉ to withdraw from this year's Eurovision inadvertently highlights the weakness of his own arguments.
Readers will note that Mr Sears does not dispute “Israel’s illegal and immoral” behaviour, but he’s aggrieved that human rights abuses “by autocracies and dictatorships don’t carry the same moral outrage”.
So, is this the yardstick by which Mr Sears believes Israel should be judged, and not as a western-style democracy?
He also states that “disproportionate focus on Israel’s illegal and immoral behaviour feeds a vertiginous rise in anti-Semitism”.
What evidence does he have for this bold statement? Certainly anti-Semitism has been on the rise recently, coinciding with the emergence of far-right nationalist populism. Does it bother Mr Sears that Israel has allied itself with many of these states? Witness Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s warm embrace of the governments of Hungary, Poland, Brazil, etc, all overtly racist, misogynistic and xenophobic.
Israel has engaged in the longest military occupation in recent times. It is engaged in the de facto creeping annexation of the West Bank. It operates an egregious apartheid system in the occupied Palestinian territories.
If Israel wishes to join the Eurovision club of western democracies, it’s time it started to behave like one. – Is mise,
TOMAS McBIDE,
Letterkenny,
Co Donegal.
Sir, – Oliver Sears rightly points out the disproportionate focus by Irish activists on anything to do with Israel compared with their relative silence regarding human rights abuses committed by larger states.
The singling out of Israel for condemnation, and even demonisation, is not unique to Ireland.
On March 18th, the UN’s 47-nation Human Rights Council will devote an entire day to discussing Israel. The “discussion” is expected to result in the passing of five resolutions condemning the world’s only Jewish state.
Afterwards the council is due to consider one resolution each on such egregious abusers of human rights as Iran, North Korea and Syria.
There are no motions listed dealing with Turkey, Zimbabwe, China, Pakistan and other oppressive states.
This raises an important question. Why is Israel condemned, and often hated, more than any other nation? – Yours, etc,
KARL MARTIN,
Bayside,
Dublin 13.