Eamon Martin, the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, has a spittle-flecked message for Israel:”Irish Catholic Archbishop: Israeli response to Hamas ‘merciless and disproportionate,'” by Michael Starr, Jerusalem Post, January 2, 2025:
“I highlight Gaza not only because of the severe impact of this conflict but because it is emblematic of the failure of the international community to prevent the escalation of conflict and to protect civilians,” said Martin. “This is despite rulings of the International Court of Justice on protection from genocide, on illegal occupation of Territories, and on systemic discrimination.”
Martin has given his imprimatur to the grotesque charge that in Gaza Israel has been committing genocide. The only attempt at “genocide” in this whole business was that displayed by Hamas on October 7, 2023, when its operatives raped, tortured, and murdered Israelis, gouging out eyes and cutting off genitalia of some of its victims before killing them. The IDF has not been committing “genocide” in Gaza. The IDF has facilitated the delivery of 1.1 tons of humanitarian aid, which is not what an army hellbent on genocide would do. Only 13,000 civilians in Gaza, out of a total population of 2.2 million, have died as a result of the war. And it must be repeated: the IDF has made unprecedented efforts to minimize civilian casualties by warning people away from places about to be targeted. Hamas, on the other hand, by embedding its operatives and hiding its weapons in civilian areas, is deliberately trying to maximize civilian casualties.
Martin said that with more sophisticated and powerful weapons being employed in streets, homes, hospitals, and schools, modern warfare had become indistinguishable from terrorism.
“How can tactics, which cause thousands of civilian deaths, alongside the whole scale [sic] destruction of food, water, health services, and other infrastructure that is essential for survival, ever hope to restore justice and rights, resolve differences, respect human dignity, or provide a path for reconciliation and peace?” asserted the archbishop.
More “sophisticated” weapons have allowed the IDF to strike terrorist targets with greater precision, thus minimizing collateral damage. As for Martin’s charge about the “whole scale” (sic) “destruction of food, water, health services and other infrastructure,” every part of this claim is preposterous. The IDF does not “destroy” food and water in Gaza, but supplies both to the Gazans. The IDF cannot, however, be blamed if, once the trucks bringing the aid are inside Gaza, some of that aid is seized by Hamas both for distribution to its own members and for sale to ordinary Gazans. Nor is Israel destroying “health services” — that is, hospitals. It is Hamas, by hiding its weapons and men, sometimes hundreds of them, inside hospitals, that makes not the hospitals in their entirety, but the places where those men and weapons are located, legitimate targets of the IDF.
Martin is the latest Irish religious leader to issue harsh criticism of Israel’s conduct during the Israel-Hamas War, with Anglican Church of Ireland Canon David Oxley claiming on Remembrance Sunday that the IDF had a cruel policy of targeting schools, hospitals, and mosques, and that Israelis saw Jews as a “master race” – a term usually associated with Nazi ideology.
The Catholic Archbishop Eamon Martin is deplorable, but far worse is the openly antisemitic Anglican Church of Ireland Canon David Oxley, who dares to claim that Israelis see Jews as a “master race.” The Jews as the new Nazis? But why then did that “master race” allow the 160,000 Arabs in Israel in 1949 to not only live, but to multiply until there are now two million Arabs in Israel? And why did the Jews who won control of Gaza in the Six-Day War allow the 400,000 Arabs in Gaza in 1967 to increase until there were 1.2 million Arabs in the Strip when Israel withdrew in 2005? And why did Israel allow the 900,000 Arabs who were living in the West Bank in 1967 to become the three million living there today? Surely the “master race” could have prevented all that.
And if the Israelis believe that Jews are the “master race,” as Oxley claims, why are Arabs allowed to serve on Israel’s Supreme Court, to sit in the Knesset, to have their own political parties? Why are those “inferior” Arabs allowed to become doctors and treat Jewish patients? Why does the “master race” allow Arabs to serve side-by-side with Jews in the military? Or let Arabs play on the same sports teams, and in the same orchestras, or to work with Jews in the same offices and factories? Why does the “master race” of Jews in Israel provide medical care to Arabs, and let Arabs provide medical care to Jews? Why do the “master race” Jews allow Arabs to become the heads of Israeli companies, including the largest. bank in Israel? Why does that “master race” make such tremendous efforts to spare the lives of the “inferior” Arabs in Gaza with its elaborate warnings about targeted sites? Perhaps Canon Oxley should look into the Qur’an, where he will discover that it is Muslims, not Jews, who are taught that they are the “best of peoples” and non-Muslims are “the most vile of created beings.”
Wellington says
Eamon Martin is dispositive of a greater problem and that is that the Roman Catholic Church has gone into moral relativity land, often accompanied by sheer gooey stupidity, woke rubbish and rank back-asswards thinking.
I was raised a Roman Catholic but am glad I no longer adhere to a faith that I historically admire but certainly not as it is presently constituted. And I don’t believe there is any closing of this particular Pandora’s Box which that monumental tragedy, Vatican II, opened and so it remains highly likely all continually downhill from here. Eamon Martin is indicative of this almost certain irreversible descent.
bill says
This is why Christianity is losing ground, because of leaders like this one. They are not Christians but they are morons. Turning the other cheek is not a good option in modern times. Jesus we are lead to believe did so and look where that got him.
i am ashamed of the Irish or at least their leadership. I once thought of getting citizenship through my maternal grandmother, not any more though.
Kepha says
Much as I despise bishops Martin and Oxhead, oops, Oxley, I will not mock Jesus Christ. Where did Christ’s love and grace get him? Not only to the cross–where he paid the full penalty of his people’s sins–but also to his resurrection and ascension. It is for us to receive the salvation that he won for us; not to pretend we can be other Christs.
The Sermon on the Mount with its difficult ethics is not a “simple, easy, moral guide” (how I wish I had a green tenner for every time I have heard the biblically illiterate say something like this); and I will never fault Jesus for giving it. Nor will I dismiss it as “good only for the slaves of those times”. The Sermon on the Mount is given as a spiritual kick in the stomach to all those complacent Pharisees–whether in first century Judaea or twenty-first century America and Ireland–who think that by various legal niceties or strenuous hyper-righteousness of our own that we sav ourselves. The Sermon on the Mount exposes who paltry and petty even our highest “righteousness” is. It exposes the best of us as sinners under the judgment of a righteous and holy God who need a remedy far more radical than anything we can do. Hence the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). Hence the Good Shepherd laid down his life for the sheep (Jon 10:15). Hence the LORD laid on the Messiah the iniquity of us all; and by his stripes we are healed (Is. 53:5-6; I Peter 2:24).
I am not one of those Dispensationalist Evangelicals who watch every burp in the Middle East as a sign of the impending Second Advent; and I believe firmly that the Chosen People of God are gathered around the Messiah Jesus rather than at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. However, I cannot forget that Gaza decided to crow about abducting, raping, and publicly humiliating Israeli women and killing children in a gruesome manner. They provoked a bear, so I cannot weep when they end up getting mauled. The Israelis, along with everyone else, have the right to protect themselves and their loved ones.
Does Eamon Martin ever ask himself how making viral a video of an abducted (and likely raped) woman fouling herself and being dragged off in a speeding car by young toughs and stuffing babies into microwaves is conducive to peace and reconciliation?
Perhaps he thinks of Israelis as European settlers–blond, blue-eyed, highly civilized and cultured folks who ought to share the same humanitarian values as the post-Christian Westerners whom Martin probably secretly envies. He may consider that the Israeli majority is of Mizrahi origin; people who might know a thing or two about life in Dhimmi status that the rest of us ought to heed, and are determined not to go back to such a status.
For the record, I am not Roman Catholic. I became a confessional Reformed Christian (Presbyterian in its British-Isles iteration) in young manhood, and remain one into old age.
James Lincoln says
All tragically true, Wellington.
Amazingly, there are still some parish priests who are excellent – and privately despise Pope Francis at least as much as I do.
Patrick White says
Wow. What a donkey we have here. He doesn’t raise his voice to speak on behalf of the millions of oppressed, tortured or murdered Christians around the world… but he wants to make the (false) case for a handful of pre-programmed terrorist savages. A new low for the representatives of Catholicism.
skeptiker says
Esel ist für diesen Himmelskomiker in altbewährter katholisch-faschistischer Tradition noch geschmeichelt.
Peter WF says
The pope has 0 “refugees” in the Vatican – does not lead by example. What would you expect from the rest of the organisation? Do as I say not as I do people.
James Lincoln says
Peter WF,
To your point, I have never heard anyone ask Pope Francis how many muslim “refugees” he plans to take into the Vatican…
somehistory says
It’s possible that when he was on his way to get something to eat, he fell and bopped his head. More than likely, he wants to stay on the *good* side (if there is one, which is really, really doubtful) of the pope. Perhaps ‘agreeable’ side is a better term. Because everything he is saying, is in line with what the evil nitwit known as pope, has been spouting.
Israel, and indeed, Catholics, should ignore him if they can.
Steven says
Maybe he should have gotten his lying, lazy ass over to Gaza to get the hostages out instead of sanctimoniously blowing smoke up people’s arses.
Tony Rice says
* They ” were always regarded as a bit thick.
Bexarkat says
Simply another uninformed fool.
Taffy says
Eamon Martin should drink a case of Guinness and then STFU!
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Why does any Bishop – Arch or not – feel the need to weigh in on something political that doesn’t involve his sect at all? Whatever Israel does doesn’t affect the Roman Catholic Church nor the Irish, so where was the need to weigh in? The President, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister have done enough damage to Israel-Irish relations. He should instead explore what challenges lie ahead for his flock from his new muslim neighbors, whom his country’s leaders have been importing in big numbers
somehistory says
How about the fact they ignore what is happening to Christians….many of them Catholic…at the hands of mozlums in Africa?
Does ignoring that, and standing up for mozlums who are trying to wipe out the Jews, not constitute being accessories to the murders, the actual genocide in places like Nigeria/
Grannya says
No one seems to care what is happening in Africa or are the least bit concerned about the “slow” take over by the muslums in all nations around the world including the USA. It’s being done nation by nation, one step at a time. Take over a school board, city council, elections slowly take over state, work your way to USA government jobs and next thing you know, you’ve become a muslum state.
Their goal is to take over the world as we know it, and to them it’s ok to lie to get what they want.
gravenimage says
Important points, Somehistory.
John Hawkins says
The Catholic church has comitted more genocide than the Jews could ever think about doing.
Mike 2 says
Good point.
Stefan v. says
Would you let this…person….babysit your little boy? How about just letting him teach papism, instead of biblical Christianity?
jerry glenn says
Ireland surges in the international Islamopandering derby.
Mateen says
Perhaps he’s jockeying for position to replace Francis when the latter crosses the river Styx.
Jedothek says
The bishop’s use of the term “disproportionate” indicates that he understands even less about military science than I do (I am not a veteran)
He seems to think that when a hostile force kills some of your people, you should kill a comparable number of the other side to even it out. This strategy is the crudest conception of war aims.
Israel is not employing that strategy. rather in response the hostile action of oct 7, 2023, Israel is trying to destroy Hamas as an organization in order to diminish the likelihood of similar attacks in the future. This is a rational aim.
in any war, collateral damage (including killing innocent noncombatants) will occur. To count the deaths on both sides and ask whether the numbers are proportionate is to misunderstand the situation entirely.
gravenimage says
+1
Left Coast says
Eamon Martin, the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland & his equally confused buddy in Britain, Anglican Church of Ireland Canon David Oxley are living in the Post Christian bubble . . .
The Roman Church has persecuted J*ws for well over 1000 years now . . . and the Ranglicans are not much better.
Funny how Islam & Fascism share 14 points of sameness . . . . but these two losers are unable to notice as Islam takes over their countries today.
Were they actual Bible Believers these two would be more concerned what G*d has to say on the subject . . . the Prophets tell us . . .
Jeremiah 30:
3 For, lo, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the LORD: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.
16 Therefore all they that devour thee shall be devoured; and all thine adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity; and they that spoil thee shall be a spoil, and all that prey upon thee will I give for a prey.
17 For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the LORD; because they called thee an Outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after.
20 Their children also shall be as aforetime, and their congregation shall be established before me, and I will punish all that oppress them.
31:10 Hear the word of the LORD, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock.
somehistory says
If…big if….they ever read any of the Prophets, they completely ignore them, reveling in their own twisted thinking that they are beyond the reach of the LORD and the God in Whom they profess to believe and Whom they pretend to worship.
They neither actually believe or worship. They are in it for the *glory* they get from men and for the soft life….living off the money others have worked for and give freely…they have as supposed shepherds of the flock.
As the Bible says, “misleading and being misled.”
Pray Hard says
My Irish ancestors are spinning their graves.
Ralph says
Eamon Martin is a Primate. Well, yeah, I can go along with that. He’s made a monkey of himself.
somehistory says
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCBgWbE52-Q
“Why Jesus “100 PERCENT” Walked on This Road”
Glenn and his guest discuss the fact that mozlums are working to erase the history of Jews and Christians in Israel by digging and destroying ancient ground beneath the Temple Mount.
gravenimage says
Irish Archbishop Gives His Imprimatur to the Most Grotesque False Charge Against Israel
……………………………………………………
Just sickening calumny.