Not to be outdone in anti-Israel animus, the Taoiseach of Ireland, Simon Harris, has in a phone call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced what he described as the “firing on UNIFIL” as “completely unacceptable.” He also has raised his “serious concern” with Israel’s President Isaac Herzog after Israeli forces fired [sic] on UN peacekeeping posts in southern Lebanon. “Statement following Taoiseach’s call with President of Israel Isaac Herzog,” Gov.ie, October 14, 2024:
The Taoiseach spoke by phone today with Israeli President Isaac Herzog to relay the Government’s serious concern about the deteriorating situation in southern Lebanon, and to emphasise the Government’s expectation that UNIFIL’s role and mandate be fully respected at all times.
He emphasised that the security of Irish peacekeepers serving in the region is paramount.
The Taoiseach was clear that the deliberate firing at UNIFIL posts is an outrageous and totally unacceptable breach of international law, and a cause of the deepest concern to the Irish people, especially the families of the Irish Defence Forces personnel serving in Lebanon.
There are so many things wrong with the Taoiseach’s statement that it’s hard to know where to begin. First, it should be noted that UNIFIL has never fulfilled its “mandate” to keep the area from the Blue Line to the Litani River free of Hezbollah, and it’s a bit rich for Harris to piously invoke the UNIFIL’s need to play its assigned role and fulfill its mandate. It never has done so, and there is no reason to think it will dare to try now.
Second, the “security of Irish peacekeepers”is “paramount” to Simon Harris, all right, but the duty of Israel’s prime minister is quite other — it is to maintain the security of the people of Israel. And if Hezbollah fires on it, sends drones and rockets and missies to rain death on Israelis, the IDF has a duty to fire back and neutralize the threat, even if that means firing close to UNIFIL positions or even, in some cases where the fog of war descends, risking an accidental hit to UNIFIL troops who have, after all, been warned time and again by Israel in recent days to leave the current combat zone.
Third, and most unacceptable, is the remark of Simon Harris, the Taoiseach (Ireland, alas, is now the most anti-Israel country in Europe, for reasons I cannot fathom) about what he calls the “deliberate firing at UNIFIL posts” that is an “outrageous and totally unacceptable breach of international law.” There has been no “deliberate firing at UNIFIL posts” by the IDF. There has been firing back at those Hezbollah positions from which gunfire, rockets, missiles, and drones have been unleashed at Israel, but any UNIFIL soldiers who have been wounded by IDF fire are ultimately the victims of Hezbollah’s practice of placing its operatives and weapons as close as they can to UNIFIL positions, in order to use the UNIFIL soldiers as human shields, just as Hamas does with Gazan civilians.
In a rightly-ordered world, UN Secretary-General Guterres, and Taoiseach Simon Harris, and the rest of the world-wide anti-Israel galère would not be attacking the IDF, but instead denouncing Hezbollah for “using UNIFIL troops as human shields” and insisting that “this practice must stop.”
But we don’t live in a rightly-ordered world. And those filled with anti-Israel animus have found yet another excuse, another way to slander and attack and try to tie the Jewish state in knots as its soldiers fight valiantly what is now a seven-front war against those who would destroy their country, kill or expel its Jewish inhabitants, and replace it with a 23rd Arab state of “Palestine.”
It’s a sign of Harris’ shallowness that he believes in that so-called “two-state solution,” which he apparently does not realize is merely a Palestinian tactic to force Israel to be squeezed back within the 1949 armistice lines, leaving Israel stripped of territory essential to its defense, such as the Jordan Valley, and with a nine-mile-wide waist from Qalqilya to the sea, which an invader from the east could cross, cutting the tiny state in two, within a few hours. When he says “we know what we’re talking about,” he means the peace that was achieved in Northern Ireland between Catholics and Protestants; he fails to realize that the war being waged by Hamas is completely different in its aims than those of the IRA. The IRA did not want to expel or kill every last Protestant in Northern Ireland, but wanted only to unite Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland. Hamas, on the other hand, wants to expel or kill every Jew in Israel — an annihilationist impulse that Simon Harris fails to recognize.
Something, alas, is wrong, politically and morally, with Ireland, when it comes to the Jewish state. To say that all this is mildly depressing is putting it mildly.
Stephen Valler says
It must be remembered that the IRA trained with the PLO and maintained constant links with terrorist groups in the middle East with weaponry being sold to them. This false parallel ideology between Britain and Ireland and Israel and the Palestinians was and is, a convenient way of maintaining Irish calls for a unification of Eire and Northern Ireland. There were similar but unsuccessful attempts to draw parallels between Spain and ETA and now ETA is disbanded it is a forgotten ploy.
Mick says
Many of the over 60s will never forget or forgive. Thanks for the memory.
Mike says
Some anti-Israel sites are now blaming Israel for the widespread destruction of buildings in Gaza, and pointing out long-term health problems to Palestinians due to the inhalation of debris-laden toxic fumes from the bombings.
First, it’s not like HamArse doesn’t bear the vast bulk of the responsibility for that.
Secondly, perhaps now many Palestinians who have celebrated the atrocious 9/11 terror attacks against the United States, will begin to appreciate the similar health problems which tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of New Yorkers, and other people present in New York City at the time, have been suffering due the al-Qaeda Islamofascist terrorism.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I’m starting to see the point of all the anti-Irish jokes that ever came out of England
somehistory says
Infidel, don’t judge the Irish of the past by what this fool is saying. I have Irish in my family tree.
This idiocy is not limited to one nation, or one group of people. It’s earth-wide and growing in its evil stupidity..
William says
I’m Irish both sides, and proud of it! This Teosuck can go stuff cabbages up his arse! I certainly support Israel, and I wish mortal disease on his tater-chewing self!
carpediadem says
An imaginative and justified response! 😉
OLD GUY says
I’m Irish also and totally agree with you.
Angeli says
First of all Simon Harris, as an Irish person, you do not speak for me.
If you want to think of yourself as a good upstanding person, try rooting out the corrupt TDs in the Irish parliament.
Do something about the atrocious homeless situation in Ireland.
Try fixing our grossly underfu ded health service and bring it up to the standards of other western countries. The health service in Russia for example is far superior to Ireland’s.
Keep your nose out of Israel’s business. Remember the times the IDF had to save the arses of your puny so called forces in Lebanon, your so called army who are also a joke, a tiny force who couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag.
You do not speak for me .
You make me ashamed to be Irish.
Go Israel 🇮🇱
sean Walsh says
I am Irish and he does not speak for me or the rest of the anti-Israel people in the government, They mostly could not care about the native Irish flooding the country with immigrants, Some times it does not feel like Ireland anymore.