Gesture politics and Alan Shatter’s Israel

● Sir — Alan Shatter brands the Irish Government’s plan to recognise the state of Palestine as “bizarre”, insisting that “recognition of states is dependent on there being a reasonably well defined territory” (Opinion, April 14).

How bizarre, then, that Mr Shatter raises no objection to the Israeli state’s lack of “a reasonably well-defined territory”.

International consensus sees the Israeli state’s eastern border at the green line. The “barrier wall”, deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice, forms a different de facto border strategically encircling illegal settlements far beyond the green line.

Many Israeli policy-makers, in turn, claim Israeli sovereignty over the entirety of the occupied West Bank. On this basis, under the criteria that Mr Shatter cites, the Israeli state, which he champions so vigorously, does not merit recognition as a state.

Mr Shatter vividly describes threats posed by a number of the Israeli state’s regional opponents, but in his innocuous portrayal of the occupied West Bank as “still being under Israeli rule” he neglects to mention Israel’s colonial illegal settlements, which are a breach of the 4th Geneva Convention, which Dáil Éireann has unanimously condemned as amounting to “de facto annexation” and which UN Security Council Resolution 2334 denounces as a “flagrant violation” of international law with “no legal validity”.

His glowing description of occupied East Jerusalem as being “governed by Israel as part of a reunited city” whitewashes the Israeli state’s illegal annexation and occupation of East Jerusalem, denounced in a slew of UN resolutions.

However, I thoroughly agree with Mr Shatter’s assessment that the Government’s announcement “is merely performative gesture politics”.

The Coalition should stop throwing shapes and simply enact the Occupied Territories Bill and the Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill.

Brian Ó Éigeartaigh, Donnybrook, Dublin 4

Deaths of 34,000 in Gaza are perverse

● Sir — Alan Shatter links the so-called demonisation of Israel with the announcement that the Irish Government might recognise a Palestinian state. He refers to this announcement as “perverse, bizarre” and ignoring “factual reality”.

So I ask, as a fellow Jew: Why does the suggestion of the recognition of a Palestinian state engender such panic? If there is to be a resolution of the “IsraeliPalestinian conflict”, surely there must be some similar recognition of the rights of Palestinians to self-determination as Alan Shatter would afford to the state of Israel?

I fail to understand why 34,000 deaths is not bizarre and perverse. If this is what it takes to make the state of Israel safe, it is a crime against humanity.

I wonder how any Jewish person of conscience can defend this onslaught on humanity.

There is no way forward from here that does not reference the absolute right of the Palestinian people to peace, security, dignity and equality.

Sue Pentel, Jews for Palestine — Ireland, Belfast

Netanyahu will not yield settlements

● Sir — Alan Shatter claims Ireland would be in breach of international law if we recognised the state of Palestine. I note his stunning silence in respect of Israel’s breach of international law in respect of the illegal settlements in the West Bank.

If a two-state solution, as advised by the Oslo Accords, were to happen, could he see the likes of Netanyahu and his assassins ceding the West Bank to its lawful owners?

Matthew Harmey, Dublin 8

One-sided retelling of history is no help

● Sir — I have read the most appallingly biased articles in the Sunday Independent week in, week out. Emotional opinions aside, a line is crossed when historical and geographical facts are blatantly cast aside and reconstructed, as in Rosita Sweetman’s column on April 14 (‘Denying statehood isn’t just bad faith: it’s central to Israeli agenda’, April 14).

The Ottoman Empire ruled the entire TransJordan region for centuries. There never was a Palestinian state. People in that region never ruled themselves, nor could they have. The myth of 1.5 million Palestinians idyllically tending their olive groves and farms is well rehearsed — a fairy tale in the Middle East without a happy ending.

Rosita mentions the “blood and gore” of 1948 without saying that five neighbouring Arab countries invaded the former British Mandate for Palestine with the intention of wiping out the Jewish people living there.

The Jewish people maintained a presence in that land long before the Roman Empire — never mind the Ottoman Empire or the British Mandate.

A one-sided, biased and historically inaccurate revision of events is helpful to no one.

Ena Keye,

Rathfarnham, Dublin 14

Coalition must hear both sides of story

● Sir — I found it utterly disturbing that at both the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael ard fheis they invited the Palestinian ambassador and not the Israeli.

Surely this was a perfect time to show that, by having both ambassadors there, you listen to both sides always.

Úna Heaton, Limerick