COLUMN: Gaza hasn't gone away you know

Once upon a time if someone mistreated you, revenge could take any form, including death. When the people of Israel introduced the Hammurabi Code of ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ (Exodus 21:23-27) it limited retribution to the same proportion that you had been wronged. It was a major step forward. Jesus then turned that on its head with his ‘love your enemy’!

Today, we seem to be further back, dangling in the law of the jungle. While tariff talk is taking up the column inches and headlines, the ongoing butchery of a defenceless people almost goes unnoticed. Outrage is flagging over the ongoing murder of Palestinian women and children by an out of control IDF (Israel Defense Force).

We are consumed with the ‘price of everything’ as we watch our values dissipate. Our sense of anger has been worn down by the daily buffeting of bodies and body counts. Just when we think things cannot get much worse PM Netanyahu and his IDF hardliners create a new low in horror and abhorrence, with American support.

No one is safe from their tariff of treachery. Children, women and innocent men from all walks of life are fair game to twisted minds who think that ‘collateral damage’ is acceptable in their pursuit of ‘legitimate targets’. Even those who dedicate their lives to saving others and tending to the injured, Red Cross members, were savagely executed and their bodies coldly buried, alongside Civil Defence colleagues. The IDF denied everything until, once again, their lies were thrown open by the light of truth, regardless of their cynical promises to carry out a ‘thorough investigation’. The only ‘thorough’ they know is deceit.

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Dehumanisation continues at all levels. Ahmed Najar, Palestinian playwright, put it well: “This is a system. A system in which Palestinians are presumed guilty. A system in which hospitals must prove they are hospitals, schools must prove they are schools and children must prove they are not human shields.

“A system in which our existence is treated as a threat – one that must be justified, explained, verified – before anyone will mourn us… Dehumanisation is not just a rhetorical problem. It is not just media framing or political language. It kills. It erases. It allows the world to look away while entire communities are wiped out. It tells us: Your life does not matter the same way. Your grief is not real until we verify it. Your death is not tragic until we approve it…

“And the emotional toll is immense. We do not just grieve; we defend our grief. We do not just bury our dead; we fight to have their deaths recognised. We live with a psychological pressure no community should bear – the pressure to prove we are not what the world has already decided we are.”

For those of us who have always loved the Holy Land what is happening is more than heart breaking. We know that hundreds of thousands of Israelis do not condone what their government is doing. They voice their protest publicly. They are not labelled as antisemitic. Yet, if one protests anywhere else in the world the Israeli government is quick to fire the antisemitism salvo. Now we see Germany and America follow suit where criticism of Israel is unacceptable, with threats to expel people who support the Palestinians.

Back home, planes full of munitions for Israel are still stopping off at Shannon, regardless of our neutrality. The government refuses to reveal full details of a meeting between Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (when a Junior Minister) with ex-spy Inbal Goldberger to discuss the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is opposed by more than 100 Israeli and international human rights organisations.

The Central Bank of Ireland still sells Israeli bonds, to fund the war. Gardaí reach a new low in strip-searching women after their heavy-handed arrests following their Mothers Against Genocide protest outside the Dáil. The Occupied Territories Bill is ignored.

Eye for eye had a sense of proportionality, not so what’s happening in Gaza today. We cannot ignore the ongoing genocide. We must continue to speak, write and stand up …