Sir, – Eugene Tannam (Letters, July 18th) contends that I invoked the evident murder of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh “to suggest that Israel is totally unwilling to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank”.
On the contrary; long before Shireen Abu Akleh’s killing, successive Israeli prime ministers, and contenders for the role, have routinely rejected the possibility of a Palestinian state. Former prime minister Naftali Bennett declared in 2015 that: “My positions are very clear: I never hide the fact that I categorically oppose a Palestinian state”. Current interim prime minister Yair Lapid clearly stated in 2017 that: “I am not willing to conduct negotiations over Jerusalem. It’s ours. I don’t want to divide it. And if there’s no peace because of this, let there be no peace because of this.”
Mr Tannam’s claim that “extremist positions” are the preserve of “the Israeli right wing” is sadly inaccurate. As Palestinian political analyst Ghassan Khatib explained, “they had the same political attitude: no to a Palestinian state, no to negotiations. And they continued with settlement expansion as fast as they could.”
The pretence that there is any prospect of a Palestinian state allows Israeli propagandists and their facilitators to portray the occupation as temporary, while the illegal settlements continue to expand. A case in point is US president Joe Biden’s feel-good claim that “we’re reaching one of those moments where hope and history rhyme”, even as Palestinian families are driven from their homes in Masafer Yatta.
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Yes indeed, some would have us don rose-tinted glasses, look elsewhere, sit on our hands; anything but face the fact that the Israeli state is committing the crime of apartheid and it is a moral imperative to respond as we did to the South African apartheid regime in decades past – with boycott, divestment and sanctions. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN Ó ÉIGEARTAIGH,
Donnybrook,
Dublin 4.