Realpolitik is based on practical and material factors not simplistic views.
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Michael A Moriarty suggests that I am “either delusional or indoctrinated by Zionist propaganda” because I argued the Palestinian leadership was disconnected from realpolitik after it abandoned a possible resumption of two-state negotiations with Israel (Letters, October 10).
Perhaps he does not understand the term, so I will outline its basic premise: realpolitik is based on practical and material factors rather than on theoretical or ethical objectives. It means adhering to a system of politics based on a country’s situation and its needs rather than on ideas about what is morally right and wrong.
Therefore, by demanding the impossible (a greater Palestine), Mahmoud Abass has forgone any chance of achieving the possible (a two-state solution) and abandoned the Palestinian people. In doing so, he has effectively assigned a permanent inter-generational status of victim hood to the vulnerable and disadvantaged people he is supposed to represent.
To base an argument that Israel is “an apartheid state that discriminates against its Arab citizens” on nothing more than the fact he lived and worked in Israel is stunning in its simplicity.
To counter this baseless claim I will list the following facts. After the 2015 election, 16 Arabs were elected to the Knesset (Israel's Parliament) where a number of them actually argue for the destruction of the very parliament they sit in.
I lived and worked in Israel for five years, however, unlike Mr Moriarty, I would never base an argument on that simple fact.
Dr Kevin McCarthy
Kinsale
Co Cork
Here is extracts from an open letter to Pink Floyd's Roger Waters.....
As a Pink Floyd fan, I cannot ignore your tireless efforts to serve as the poster boy for BDS efforts to undermine the Jewish State's legitimacy – by publically castigating everyone from the Rolling Stones to Neil Young to cancel performances in Israel. (Thankfully NONE of them listened and all played Israel 2014)
And who can forget your claim – in United Nations testimony, no less – that Hamas desires "permanent peace with Israel.” Have you not read the Hamas charter calling for complete annihilation of Israel? And how do you explain – following Israel's voluntary withdrawal from all of Gaza in 2005 – that Hamas responded by launching thousands of rockets into Israel, targeting homes, schools and buses?
Or how about your comparison of Israel to Nazi Germany, saying “the parallels with what went on in the 30’s in Germany are so crushingly obvious"?
Really? Where are the slave labor camps and the nightly massacres? Two-thirds of European Jewry exterminated by the Nazis? That’s genocide. Half the population of Darfur – 3 million people – either dead or displaced? That’s genocide. But the Arab population of the territories soaring from under one million in 1967 to four million today? If Israel is committing genocide, that’s the least efficient genocide in history.
I won't even bother refuting your many lies, including the myth that Israel's population is as you claim "largely settled from Europe." Have you never heard of the hundreds of thousands of Jews banished from the Arab countries and forced to leave with no possessions?
You ask rhetorically if Palestinian people "have the right to vote?" The answer, as you know, is that they are still waiting for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas – on year 10 of his 4-year term – to hold new elections.
Roger, you consistently show yourself to be less pro-Palestinian and more anti-Israel.
You pushed for the closing of a SodaStream plant in the West Bank. Do you even care about the hundreds of satisfied Palestinian workers who explained: "If you ask me, there should be a thousand SodaStreams in this area"?
I'll miss you, Mr. Waters. But fortunately I'll still have the Rolling Stones,KISS, Bob Dylan and the hundreds of other artists who've played awesome concerts in Israel – in spite of your double-standard attacks on the Jewish State.
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