The Irish Congress of Trade Unions sent a mission to Israel and Palestine last year and as a result of the visit a report, with recommendations for action, has been drawn up. Most of the recommendations are unexceptionable and some are praiseworthy. However, it also calls for a boycott of Israeli goods and services and the ending of Israel’s favourable trade relations with the EU. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to its authors that Israeli trade unionists might have difficulty taking seriously arguments about peace, justice and solidarity made to them by folk who are doing their best to make them lose their jobs.
The report also places great emphasis on illegal activity carried out by Israel. Quite right too. Is it possible though, that the people who drew it up are unaware of the fact that unguided rockets have been fired without cease from Gaza at southern Israeli towns since Israel withdrew from Gaza? Has the news of repeated attacks by Hamas and allied groups on the crossing points into Israel not reached them? It seems unlikely. Given that they must be aware of all this why don’t they mention any of it?
One possibility is that they don’t think it’s criminal and they believe that the fact that the Hamas is the weaker side militarily gives it carte blanche to conduct its conflict with Israel anyway it likes; in short, that while it’s illegal for Israel to carry out attacks likely to kill civilians it’s perfectly fine for Hamas to carry out attacks whose sole and only aim is to kill civilians.
Now why would anybody think that there was nothing criminal about deliberate and repeated attempts to kill civilians? It´s not like the people concerned are insensitive to civilian deaths in general, they are rightly concerned about the rights and physical integrity of Palestinian civilians. One reason might be that they think Israeli civilians deserve to be terrorised and murdered, that the mere fact of being Israelis makes them unworthy of the same protection due to everyone else. And what single characteristic unifies about 80% of Israeli civilians? That’s right, they are Jews.
