Israel knows that in terms of the Middle East conflict it is seen in European public opinion more as Goliath than David. GERRY MORIARTY, Northern Editor, reports from Israel
THE RECENTLY retired letters editor of The Irish Times, Liam McAuley, had a view borne out of long experience that one of the very few subjects where there was never the remotest possibility of a meeting of minds on the letters page was the issue of Israel and Palestine.
One such letter writer is Barrie Rothman, who on this particular day is chatting to a group of us Irish journalists in a pleasant cafe in the city of Sderot, southern Israel. Outside the sun is blazing, the beautiful lilac-blue jacaranda trees provide just a little shade, and the bomb shelters in the children’s playground are painted in cheerful colours.
Sderot is within range of the Qassam rockets that Hamas frequently fires from nearby Gaza, which Hamas now controls – hence the shelters throughout the city. This and other towns in the area have taken some 8,500 rockets attacks in the past eight years, which have killed 24 people and injured hundreds.
Rothman, a retired psychologist who has been living in Israel since 1968, came to Sderot to provide voluntary counselling for the hundreds of people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the attacks.
Born in England, Rothman was educated in the 1950s at Wesley College and Trinity College Dublin. One night he was in Davy Byrne’s pub off Grafton Street in Dublin when a burly, rough individual entered and started ribbing a few “posh” Trinity types drinking at the bar.
He turned and chatted to Rothman and, on learning he was Jewish, jumped up on one of the tables and belted out Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem.
The man was Brendan Behan, almost needless to say.
Last December and January, Israeli army attacks on Gaza claimed the lives of 1,300 Palestinians. The Israelis lost 13 people, creating a widespread view that Israel computed the relative value of life in the Middle East as 100 Arabs equal one Israeli.
Rothman complains that there is no sense of understanding why Israel made its onslaught into Gaza, and of how it had a duty to its people to respond to the continuing rocket attacks, although he says Israel did make mistakes: “In my opinion the attacks were justified, although they should have stopped after a few days.”
He argues these points in letters to Irish newspapers but feels he is not making much impact.
Some academics, politicians and commentators warn against making peace-process comparisons between Northern Ireland and Israel. That is fair enough, but there are parallels worth exploring, and maybe even a few lessons to be learned.
At their invitation, we have been in the company of Israeli foreign-affairs officials, politicians, charity workers, community activists, religious, business and medical people and ordinary civilians for the guts of a heavily scheduled week. We’re hearing what Israelis feel, think and experience.
Have we learned anything, we are asked one night? I offer a tentative opinion. Taking my inspiration from Séamus Mallon and his famous line about the 1973 Sunningdale agreement, I’ve come up with a slogan about how peace could be achieved in the Middle East. “Oslo for slow learners,” I say, referring to the failed Middle East peace accord hammered out in Norway in 1993. It has a certain ring about it.
We visit a heavily guarded Gaza border-crossing point at Kerem Shalom, where scores of lorries containing charitable supplies arrive each day.
There are restrictions on what is allowed through: Palestinians complain this is a punitive measure to cause hardship; Israelis answer that it is to prevent Hamas from bringing in materials to make more rockets or to build more tunnels from Gaza into Egypt to smuggle in weapons and explosives.
Ami, a tough middle-aged man in a baseball cap, is in charge of the crossing. He says attacks on it are fairly regular. That morning, a sniper shot was fired. Nobody was injured, and nobody is particularly perturbed.
Ami – “you don’t need to know my surname” – knows John Ging, Portlaoise native and head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which distributes aid to locals and runs schools for 200,000 children in Gaza.
Ging’s testimony on the suffering of ordinary Palestinians during the Israeli raids, and the general poverty and suffering in the area, made a powerful impression internationally.
“I like him. I think he is a brave man,” says Ami. “But I don’t like his opinion on things. He sees only the Palestinian side; he doesn’t see the other side.”
Israelis are very conscious that their country’s image has been tarnished in many parts of the world, a point vividly made by Ruth Zach of the foreign affairs ministry, who will be packing her bags shortly for a stint at the Israeli embassy in Dublin.
She knows the challenges she will face. “We have completely lost the battle in the media,” she says. “We are not given a fair chance. We need to get to the hearts and ears of people in Europe. What will it take for Europeans to ask the Palestinians also to be accountable?”
It is a frank admission and a fair question. Israelis we met spoke of the notion of David and Goliath: how, after the Holocaust and after the Israelis resisted the Arab invasions in 1967 and 1973, most Irish and many European people would have perceived Israel in the role of David. But in most of Europe, Israel is now seen as Goliath, and Israelis don’t really know how to counter that view.
Tomorrow: Are there lessons from the Irish peace process that can apply to the Middle East?