Recently I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau. The experience was as moving as it was monstrous. Years previously I’d gone to the Dachau concentration camp. It too left a lasting impression.
My mind couldn’t comprehend the scale of the inhumanity, the total disregard for life, the barbarity and sadistic cruelty carried out as a form of ethnic cleansing. The rows of worn shoes piled up, thousands of pairs of spectacles, children’s soft toys, and the remnants of clothing and of all those ordinary things which once symbolised a normal life, left me numb. It’s right and proper the Holocaust is remembered and the lessons of Shoah are learned by all.
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On a barrack wall, one prisoner had written: “If there is a God, he’ll have to beg for my forgiveness.” Certainly walking through those hells on earth, it does seem as if God was looking the other way.
The scale of the Holocaust has never been repeated and there’s no direct equivalent. That’s not to say the world hasn’t borne witness to the suffering or murder of tens of millions who were subject to regimes as intensely evil and twisted as Nazism.
Few have clean hands. Western powers - now perceived as bastions of democracy - were once oppressive colonialists intent on wiping out native cultures and languages or, worse still, enslaving ethnic groups or creating two tier colonial societies.
Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot and others did more to destroy their own people than any enemy ever did. Churches don’t escape judgment, as often history shows they endorsed empire-building nations and the suppression of indigenous people across the globe, all in the name of evangelism.
The uneasy ceasefires reached between Hamas and Israel are long overdue. But a ceasefire of itself won’t provide a lasting settlement or peace for the ordinary citizens of either Palestine or Israel.
The harrowing actions of Hamas on October 7 2023, murdering 1,200 Israeli citizens, was pure savagery. It was unwarranted and brutish. The capture of hostages was unnecessarily cruel and heartbreaking for relatives and the hostages. Scenes of rape and torture were almost unimaginable - except that the perpetrators filmed their own barbarous acts.
The uneasy ceasefires reached between Hamas and Israel are long overdue. But a ceasefire of itself won’t provide a lasting settlement or peace for the ordinary citizens of either Palestine or Israel
Citizens in Israel had a right to be outraged. Retaliation was in some ways inevitable. Israelis feel in a perpetual state of unease - not surprising when terrorists sponsored by Iran, like Hezbollah and Hamas, promise to wipe them from the face of the earth.
But the turn of events since that awful day wasn’t solely about justice; it was about merciless vengeance.
That said, politically speaking Israel isn’t a homogeneous country. There are many splits and divisions. Some strongly support a two-state solution. But this is a country ill served by its prime minister and hawkish government.
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Netanyahu is a warmonger who deserves to be brought before the Hague and tried for war crimes. There’s no other way to describe the actions he has authorised.
Palestine was already an open prison. Displacing 1.2 million people from their homes, erasing their infrastructure, starving them of humanitarian aid and murdering over 46,000 innocent citizens is not and never will be justifiable. He has turned Israel into a pariah state.
As an Irishman, I am extremely proud of the actions of the Dublin government. Micheál Martin has been outstanding, principled and level-headed.
The decision of Netanyahu and his war cabinet to withdraw their ambassador to Ireland was petulant, childish and foolhardy. Israel’s government has violated the sovereignty of neighbouring countries. Being against the actions of a rogue Israeli government doesn’t make anyone anti-Semitic.
The Jewish author Eli Wiesel wrote: “Never shall I forget the faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into a wreath of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.” Poignant words; but let’s not forget the faces of the Palestinian children.
All children, Arab and Israeli both, should enjoy the warmth of the sun on their faces, not the clouds of war and the rain of bullets.
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