Sir, – Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney doesn't believe in boycotts ("Israeli boycotts 'won't create conditions for change', says Coveney", News, June 9th), and instead is following a policy of appeasement of Israel. Over the past few weeks, Israel has shot over 3,700 unarmed protesters in Gaza with live rounds, killing over 120 of them. Among those targeted are children, medics and journalists. The scale of this atrocity puts the infamous Sharpeville shootings in 1972, when 289 unarmed protesters were shot by South African police, into perspective, not to mention our own Bloody Sunday, when "only" 28 unarmed protesters were shot. One must go as far back as the infamous Amritsar massacre of 1919, when 1,500 unarmed protesters were shot by British forces, to find an atrocity even approaching the scale of the Israeli atrocity in Gaza. One wonders what is the scale of atrocity that must be reached before Mr Coveney abandons the policy of appeasement. – Yours, etc,
JOHN GEOGHEGAN,
Glasnevin,
Dublin 11.
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Sir, – Simon Coveney is too young to remember a time when Irish and other politicians (Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan among them) expressed the same view regarding boycotts of South Africa and its apartheid regime. However, once an international political, economic, sporting and cultural boycott was in place, the isolation undermined the apartheid regime, fostered hope among the oppressed and led to the downfall of the South African regime.
The Palestinians, whose young men are being killed and whose territory is slowly being gobbled up by Israel, deserve the same international support.
Mr Coveney needs to pay more attention to the historical achievement of non-violent boycott! – Yours, etc,
HARRY McCAULEY,
Maynooth,
Co Kildare.