Letters to the Editor: Teaching kids to fish is a gift that will last a lifetime
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CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB
The fishing season has started, and it is a time of busy meditation for me.
It was a good investment for me to gather the necessary skills to be able to keep my eye on the prize without getting bored and to remain curious within my environment — which would be impossible if staring into a screen.
I would like to see more young kids learning how to fish, if they are not already giving it a go. Plus they will automatically become better at spotting illusive peregrine falcons, and seeing how hierarchical systems work in nature from staring into rock pools.
I am pretty sure there are a load of older generation lads, in men’s sheds and the like, that would be only too delighted to pass on these skills.
On International Women’s Day I want to highlight the life of a woman who persevered as a life-long peace activist in encouraging goodwill and understanding between the Israeli and Palestinian people. She did this in many ways and through groups she was a member of or co-founded.
Vivian Silver was killed during the October 7 Hamas attack into the Kibbutz community where she lived a few miles from Gaza’s border. She was a Canadian-Israeli peace and women’s rights activist and lived in Israel from 1973.
She co-founded the Arab-Jewish Centre for Empowerment, Equality, and Co-operation. It organised projects connecting people in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank.
She founded Women Wage Peace in efforts to connect communities after the 2014 Israel-Hamas war.
She was a volunteer driver with Roads to Recovery, which brought Palestinian children and adults in need of operations, treatment, etc, to hospitals in Israel.
Their hope was to encourage goodwill and trust between Israelis and Palestinians. Hopes which I suspect have been devastated by Hamas’ brutal attack into Israel on October 7 and by Israel’s response later in the month of war in Gaza to eliminate Hamas.
In recent weeks people are dying of hunger from the obstacles in the way of more aid getting easily into Gaza or reaching them in north Gaza.
The US has urged Israel to make it easier for the enormous amount of aid to enter freely.
Vivian Silver wouldn’t want to see such cruel violence against innocent people and children by Hamas or by Israel in Gaza. She worked for the dignity of people and women and children on both sides of the divide.
Her son is also a peace activist who said vengeance won’t bring peace. I remember this exceptional woman today.
I have resolved to pay just passing interest to what is going on in this country going forward.
I feel little commitment to matters such as referenda or the national furore concerning RTÉ, or indeed listening to the guff from my Irish government and the assorted political parties who appear, when even just lightly scrutinised, to simply have their own promotion as the only priority.
I am of older vintage, and cannot watch on television the horror from Gaza, inflicted by Israel, any longer.
There can be no distraction from our self-serving politicians, it appears, while the murder of a whole nation is underway, without any telling input from the Dáil towards condemnation of Israel, worthy of the term.
All politics in Ireland stems from EU dictation, with domestic matters purely of the parochial powerless variety.
Irish voters simply rubberstamp the will of politicians, who are primarily interested in their careers and future prospects as a result.
Someone who expresses deep concern for humanity in Ireland is likely to be told: “Leave it to the politicians, they know best.”
But they do not. The politics of the heart must have a place in guiding our decent responses.
I attended a Cork City FC soccer match at Turners Cross one recent Friday night, and the game coincided with a Munster Rugby match in the same locality. Arriving early, and having had no food since my lunch, I decided to go to the local McDonald’s for a burger. It was quite chaotic inside, and no seating was available, so I ate standing outside. After the match I passed by and saw a much larger queue outside trying to gain access.
On reading the column by Colin Sheridan the following day — ‘Small sacrifices can make a big difference’ (Irish Examiner, March 2) — calling for a boycott of McDonalds because of the brand’s Israeli franchise’s support of the Israel Defense Forces — I thought to myself: There are few Cork people who have the same attitude in this regard as Mr Sheridan.
What your writer failed to mention was the diverse staff that McDonalds of Ireland employ, and the fact that McDonalds name is really just a franchise.
Finally, as McDonalds only use ‘100% Irish beef’ in their burgers, presumably the next boycott call by Sheridan will be on Irish producers that supply McDonalds?
Caoimhe de Barra of Trócaire rightly asserts that US backing enables Israel “to ignore the demands of its closest allies” — ‘US air drops a cover for Gaza failings’ (Irish Examiner, Letters, March 5).
Recently, the Irish Attorney General Rossa Fanning told the International Court of Justice that “the coercive environment created by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory amounts to forcible transfer, a ‘grave breach’ of the Fourth Geneva Convention which amounts to ‘a war crime’ ”.
In 2022, a United Nations Commission of Inquiry established “the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is now unlawful under international law due to its permanence and the Israeli government’s de-facto annexation policies”.
The question thus arises: How can such an outlaw state have “close allies”? Does this not imply that those states themselves are complicit in its “grave breaches” and “war crimes”?
Clearly it’s time the EU’s purported “democracies” took a close look at themselves. If their much-vaunted “shared values” entail complicity with such a rogue state as Israel, then they are worthless.