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Slán Leo
Leo Varadkar’s resignation from the office of An Taoiseach and as leader of Fine Gael caught observers by surprise. On reflection however it is very much in keeping with his personality. A bit petulant. Awkward. Impulsive. He had done his best by his own lights. And his best had not been good enough, by his own admission. So in fairness he probably did the right thing. Better to get out on his own terms.
Most people will have very little sympathy for senior politicians and the wear and tear they and their families endure as a result of the long hours, relentless pressure, the grinding nature of parliamentary work and ongoing public scrutiny. You have to believe in what you are doing. Especially when things are not going well. So I think Leo just got a sickner of it all, particularly after the recent referendum results. He was cheesed off and seems not to have the stomach for continuing in a government which is just going through the motions and serving out its time.
He was facing into internal turbulence. The Fine Gael Ard Fheis was
likely to be troubled. Eleven
of his TDs have said they will not be standing in the next election.
So why hang about? His resignation statement
was very honest. “I am no longer the best person for the job.”he said.
That was certainly the case on the North though his instincts are better than Micheál Martin’s. The amount of the Irish Government’s money forCasement was probably Leo’s initiative. His refusal to go for a Citizens Assembly to discuss and plan for unity is a mistake. He and Micheál Martin are not advocates for a new constitutional future. They are deeply wedded to their own political dispensation. They are not SNQ. Sound on the National Question. Neither is Simon Harris.
Labour !eader Ivana Bacik call for a dedicated department to look at the detailed work for unity planning is important. And welcome. Not least because it is recognition of increased and increasing public interest on the need for planning for constitutional change. Maybe if Leo had applied himself to that he wouldn't be out off a job. Ach well. Slán Leo.
The Heartbreak of it All
The million and a half Palestinians
trapped in southern Gaza city of Rafah, on the border with Egypt, are under
sustained and ruthless attack by Israeli forces. Hundreds of women, children
and men are being killed or severely wounded each day. Hospitals crammed full
of desperate human beings continue to be the target of bomb and tank and sniper
attack.
At the same time tens of thousands are facing starvation while relief
trucks carrying desperately needed food, water and medicine are been
systematically blocked by the Israel state. On Sunday it told the UN that
it will no longer allow food convoys into north Gaza where 70 percent of people
face the highest level of food scarcity. Speaking at the Rafah crossing
last Friday UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: “Here from
this crossing, we see the heartbreak and heartlessness of it all. A long line
of blocked relief trucks on one side of the gates, the long shadow of
starvation on the other. That is more than tragic. It is a moral
outrage."
It is also a war crime. The Rome
statute of the International Criminal Court is very clear on this. It defines
the deliberate starving of civilians as a crime if the intention is to deprive
“them of objects indispensable to their survival.” This includes “willfully
impeding relief supplies.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and his war cabinet are immune to all of this. He plans to launch a
ground offensive against Rafah. Netanyahu insists that this will take place
shortly. His stated aim is the defeat and destruction of Hamas. Common sense
tells us that this is unachievable.
Our own experience of colonialism
proves this. For centuries English governments sought to defeat the desire of
the Irish people for freedom and self-determination. Every conceivable weapon
of oppression was used: from mass executions and deportations, to coercion acts
and special powers, to the impoverishment and dehumanisation of the Irish
people, to the denial of basis rights and a cultural war against our language,
music and art. These were all part of English policy. So too was starvation.
In his book ‘Ireland Since the
Famine’ F. S. Lyons writing about the impact of An Gorta Mór – the Great Hunger
– wrote: “…it may well be that the most profound impact on Irish
history lay in its ultimate psychological legacy. Expressed in its simplest
terms this legacy was that the long standing and deep rooted hatred of the
English connection was given not only a new intensity, but also a new
dimension… this hatred, this bitterness, this resentment were carried overseas,
and especially to America by nearly four million Irish men and women and
children who left their homeland, decade by decade and year by year in the half
century after the Famine.”
In our own time and place the stated
aim of successive unionist and British governments was the defeat of Irish
republicanism. Collusion, special laws, torture, sectarian discrimination in employment,
military occupation of communities, were all part of government policy. One
British Secretary of State was so gung-ho that he spoke of squeezing
republicans like a tube of toothpaste! None of it worked.
What worked was a peace process,
slowly and painfully built.
The lesson for the Israeli state is
obvious. Occupation, genocide, repression, the theft of Palestinian land and
natural resources will not work. The mass slaughter of innocents will not work.
The criminalisation and dehumanisation of the Palestinian people will not work.
On the contrary the Israeli massacre of 32,000 in the Gaza Strip and the West
Bank is storing up a legacy of bitterness that will ensure that resistance
to Israeli colonialism will continue.
Regrettably, I don’t see Netanyahu
having any interest in a peace process. Pulitzer Prize-winning New York
Times columnist Thomas Friedman told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Sunday: "I
think this is the worst government Israel has ever had. And I think Netanyahu
will go down in history as the worst leader in Jewish history, not just in
Israeli history,"
But there is now a discernible change
within the international community’s approach to Israel’s genocidal strategy.
Some allies of the Israeli state are now taking up publicly more critical
positions. At the weekend it was reported that French President Emmanuel
Macron in a phone call told Netanyahu the forced transfer of people from Rafah
would constitute “a war crime”
It is long-past time for the USA,
Britain and others providing war materials to Israel to stop. They cannot fund
and arm the genocide while decrying its awful effect on Palestinians. Stop the
war. No funds or arms for Netanyahu.
Major International Conference on Moore St
Uachtarán Shinn Féin Mary Lou
McDonald TD, in association with the Moore St. Preservation Trust, will hold a
major international conference next month to discuss the future development of
the Moore St. 1916 Battlefield site. The main focus of the conference will be
on the alternative plan prepared by the Trust to that of the proposals from the
private developer Hammerson.
Moore St. – as regular readers of
this column know – is a hugely important part of the story of Easter 1916 and
is the heart of the 1916 Battlefield site. It is where the GPO Garrison
retreated when the building caught fire and it was in 16 Moore
St. that five of the seven signatories to the Proclamation met and took
the decision to order the surrender.
The Moore St. Trust has produced a
formidable, alternative plan to that of the developer – who is supported by the
government. The plan aims to preserve the site and to sensitively develop it as
a historical and cultural quarter that can play a significant role in the
regeneration of that part of our Capital City.
The conference will take place in the
GPO on 24 April, the date of the Easter Rising in 1916, and it will bring
together leading experts in the fields of tourism, planning, academia, retail
and the arts. Among those taking part will be Professor Terry Stevens a Tourism
Advisor to the United Nations, Michael Murphy, architect of the national
lynching memorial Legacy Museum in Alabama, USA, Seán Antoin Ó Muirí architect
of the alternative plan and well known historian Liz Gillis. Relatives of the
1916 leaders and others will participate. It’s shaping up to be an informative
and crucial conference around the ongoing effort to Save Moore St.
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