The Sunday Independent's View: Children of Gaza need more than just empty gestures

Irish Independent

2 days ago

Trump's tariffs. The National Development Plan. The presidential election. All pale into insignificance next to the hell endured by innocent Palestinians caught up in the 21st century's most brutal conflict, with no respite or hope of escape.
Israel suffered abominably in the October 7 massacre two years ago. Seeking to destroy Hamas was a legitimate response. The medieval cruelties being inflicted on Gaza with high-tech efficiency have, however, gone far beyond self-defence. To even call it a war any more is an abhorrent abuse of language and decency.
Given the industrial scale of the horrors unfolding before the world's eyes, yesterday's announcement by the Tánaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister, Simon Harris, that the Government is open to holding a national day of solidarity for Gaza might seem like an irrelevant sideshow.
There is already an International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, which has been observed annually on November 29 since it was instigated by the United Nations in 1977.
Coming on foot of continuing efforts to pass the Occupied Territories Bill — which will inflict little economic damage on Israel, while leaving Ireland vulnerable to revenge by Washington — a national day of solidarity might even be said to conform to an unfortunate tendency in Irish life to make grand gestures that have little real-life benefits, but only serve to make us feel smugly virtuous, as if our being on the right side of history will be any consolation to the dead.
Symbolic acts do matter, all the same, and more so if, as Harris hopes, 'many countries did it together'. He has promised to speak to colleagues 'on how to make this happen'.
Will there even be a Palestine to recognise if Israel continues its campaign?
For young people watching it play out in real time on the screens of their smartphones, the world must seem like a terrifying place right now. Last week, Ireland joined other countries in implementing strict new age verification rules aimed at preventing children seeing porn online, as well as other violent or harmful content.
It is not before time. For too long, social media companies and others neglected the responsibility to police their platforms. They lost the right to self-regulate. Collective action was inevitable.
Sparing children from the sight of other psychologically dangerous content on the internet will prove more difficult. How can they have the security young people need if they see their elders turning their backs on what is happening in Gaza?
Present generations always wondered why the mass murders of the 20th century were allowed to happen on their forebears' watch. Future generations will ask the same question of us.
It only brings home the surreal inanity of the diplomatic row that broke out in recent days after France pledged to become the first major western power to recognise the state of Palestine. The US and Israel both condemned the move as a 'surrender to terrorism'.
The real question is whether there will soon be a Palestine to recognise if Israel continues its campaign. Piles of rubble and dead bodies do not make a viable state, no more than international days of solidarity have ever saved a single life.