Activists ask Irish Government to ‘go deeper' on holding Israel to account

Belfast Telegraph

3 days ago

A former IDF soldier turned activist travelling with the delegation said it has been clear for a while that the destruction of Gaza has become the goal in and of itself.
Christian Aid and Trocaire hosted a visit from Irish Aid-funded partner organisations B'Tselem and Breaking the Silence.
Sarit Michaeli and Nasser Nawaj'ah are members of the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, known as B'Tselem.
The Israeli non-profit organisation aims to document human rights violations in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
Ms Michaeli said that Israel will not change its policies on its own and is committed to 'deepening its control' over all Palestinians in the region.
'The principle that guides Israeli policy, very sadly and unfortunately, is the principle of Jewish supremacy, which makes Israeli Jews like us superior over Palestinians, not just Palestinian residents of the West Bank, but all Palestinians living in our region,' she said.
'That's like the essence of apartheid as we see it.'
She added: 'We appreciate very much Ireland's role up to now and the very small changes that are happening in terms of international responses to what Israel is doing.
'But this needs to continue deeper, and there needs to be more commitment.
'There are irreversible, permanent, deep, egregious violations happening on the ground right now that really necessitate a very, very urgent and serious response.'
She said there is an obligation on all EU member states to intervene and implement the interim measures issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The Irish Government is to draft legislation to ban the trade of goods with Palestinian lands illegally occupied by Israeli settlements, using the ICJ advisory opinion from July as a legal basis.
But it has been criticised for suggesting that the trade of services would not be included in the ban.
'There are clear steps in the decision and there's also an opening now with the EU review of the association agreement,' Ms Michaeli said.
'The international community involvement isn't just about some sort of kind of goodwill gesture the international community is enacting. It's an obligation. These are also, in some cases, actual legal obligations just to prevent certain international crimes from occurring.
'I don't think the EU has stood up to the moment, to its obligations. On the contrary, I think the fact that we are still in this day and age, we're talking about reaching more or less 60,000 people being killed, having been killed by Israel in Gaza since the horrors of October 7, including the current ongoing starvation of two million people.
'The bottom line is, when you look at this reality, I think that the broader EU response is absolutely and hugely inadequate.'
She said the decision by the EU to review its association agreement with Israel is a 'shocking delay'.
She added: 'It's very hard to grasp how people survive and live in a situation where there is literally no-one to protect them if someone attacks them, which is what these (West Bank) communities are going through.
'Israeli soldiers are being killed constantly in Gaza and this is also something that is raising a lot of opposition internally to the war. But there is no possibility now, internally in at least in my reading, to change things from within, inside Israel on this level. And therefore this brings, again, the need to strengthen international action.'
She said that a war of revenge is taking place in Gaza and the end goal is the total destruction of the Palestinian people.
'It's not just about revenge. It's also about pursuing political objections that the Israeli government has been pursuing long before, utilising this as an opportunity,' she added.
'Removing Palestinians from huge swathes of land and wiping out the Palestinians' presence.'
Joel Carmel is a former IDF solider and is part of Breaking the Silence, an Israeli veterans' organisation aimed at raising awareness about the Israeli war crimes.
The organisation collects testimonies of former soldiers who served in the occupied territories, whether it's the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, and uses those testimonies in order to shed light on what the occupation looks like from the inside.
Mr Carmel previously served in the IDF's Cogat unit (Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories) on the Gaza border.
'I was serving in this in this unit, Cogat, which is basically responsible for the application of Israeli government policy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
'I went overnight from being a cadet to being responsible more or less for the freedom of movement of tens of thousands of people in the area and in northern West Bank.
'The deeper I went and the further I got through my service, it became clearer to me that there's not really a way that you can influence from the inside when you're part of such a big system which is so geared towards making it impossible for Palestinians to live their lives freely.
'I feel that by doing this, I'm at least I'm doing my part in a way, to make up for what I was part of.'
He said: 'As someone living in Israel, you can very easily live your life, not even knowing that the occupation exists.
'I think it's time that we as an Israeli society, first and foremost, but the world in general, should be able to differentiate between those two things, because it shouldn't be normalised the way it has been.'
He added: 'The reason that the IDF are still there, supposedly, is because of the hostages. Even though we're very much doing what we're doing in Gaza at the expense of the hostages, and we're seeing more of them being killed because of Israeli action in Gaza.
'The end game here is to clear the Gaza strip of Palestinians in exactly the same way that was their idea is to clear Area C in West Bank in order to set up settlements.
'For a while now, it's been clear that destruction in Gaza has become a goal in and of itself, not just a means to an end. And we see that in all sorts of ways.'
Mr Nawaj'ah, who is from the village of Susiya in the West Bank, has been campaigning since he was teenager.
Now a Palestinian human rights defender and a field researcher, he said settler violence in the region is getting worse.
He said that Ireland's response to Gaza has been as a humanitarian and moral one, and is important within the EU.
'We don't know how many villages are being annexed and we are taking our last breath,' he said.
'Settlers have been increasing and soldiers have been attacking homes and villages every day, late at night.
'They are successful in annexing villages and forcing people out of their homes.
'The state of Israel gives them a shield and cover to do these things.
'A lot of the lands in the Jordan Valley have been transferred to settlers, who bring their sheep and cows.
'We are helpless as the Israeli army do not intervene in favour of Palestinians.
'The war in Gaza has its end goal, which is to basically lead to ethnic cleansing, which is a goal of the current right-wing Israeli government.'