Letters to the Editor: Hopes for peace in the middle east
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In 2019, was published — a book of interviews with Palestinian and Israeli human rights defenders on how hope kept them going in their work to ensure justice and the rights of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank.
They would not have thought it would get much worse.
2024 was the year when hope in Gaza was crushed and nearly annihilated in Israel’s war against Hamas. International leadership was unable to make tough decisions to ensure protection for the civilians of Gaza from the war.
While not forgetting the surprise attack in October 2023 by Hamas from Gaza into Israel — killing over 1,000 people and taking over 200 people as hostages back to Gaza — over 100 of them were released, others rescued by Israel’s army (IDF), a few killed by mistake by the IDF, and others brutally killed by Hamas as the IDF got closer to where they were in tunnels.
Many around the world are looking forward to Christmas. It would be good to spare a thought for Gaza’s people and their uncertain future in 2025.
We need to see humanity for them from international leaders with the power to stop the war and for aid to get in faster.
The UN is seen as unable to have an impact in negotiating an end to most wars or to ensure Israel will allow and protect all the large amounts of aid to enter all parts of Gaza. Aid is getting in. Some has been looted or destroyed by one group or another. US missiles have still been delivered to Israel.
It has been a bad year for diplomacy. Diplomacy was a strong part of America’s foreign policy in the early 1960s when JFK was US president.
He saw war as a last resort.
The 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, signed in Washington DC by Egypt and Israel with then US president Jimmy Carter’s support, is a good example of the success of US diplomacy.
They have not gone to war again against each other.
I think it was a rare achievement in the Middle East and for American foreign policy. The 1998 Belfast peace agreement was also achieved with strong support from the US.
It was very positive, in 2024, that Ireland, Spain, and other countries officially recognised the statehood of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. Hopefully, the war will somehow end in 2025.
Regarding ‘Ireland’s lost Second World War defences unearthed in Limerick’ (December 6), it is good to note the level of interest in the array of pillboxes as they shed light on an aspect of our history that is often overlooked.
There are many of them dotted around the country, but few people are aware of their existence or their significance in terms of Irish political history.
In Dungarvan, just outside the town, there was a pillbox on the left as one approaches the Killangford bridge.
Another similar construction exists in the cliff face, adjacent to the path leading from the carpark to the cove in Helvick, although this may relate to an earlier period.
Also on the road from Waterford to Tramore, there was a pillbox on a hill on the left.
I’m not sure if any of these now remain, but certainly they were easily identifiable up to 40 years ago.
I was particularly intrigued to learn that a European Space Agency mission has recently been launched into space from India, using technology parts developed by a Cork-based company.
Proba-3 has seen two satellites sent into orbit to create the first man-made solar eclipse, which will be used to study the sun’s inner corona — that is the outermost part of its atmosphere — which is usually hidden by the bright light of its surface.
The precision of the satellite’s flight is made possible by technology developed in part at the Cork office of US sensor and semiconductor developer Onsemi, which bought the Cork-based startup Sensil in 2018. As already mentioned, this study is focusing on the sun’s corona.
As the sun is so bright, a million times brighter than the corona, it’s very difficult — so you need to have two satellites.
One satellite creates a perfect eclipse of the sun, so that all you can see is the corona.
The second satellite, 150m behind, lines up so it can study the corona, because that’s all it can see due to the eclipse.
Ostensibly, the issue that arises is to be able to keep them in line.
They have got to be accurate to 1mm over 150m-250m away from each other, and that’s where this Cork company comes into play.
Congratulations to Stephen Buckley, the lead engineer, and his colleagues at the Cork campus in realising such a magnificent outcome.
Out of respect for Sinn Féin’s mandate as the second biggest party on the island of Ireland, Micheál Martin should talk to Mary Lou McDonald.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael only formed a Government in 2020 to keep Sinn Féin out.
We need a new era of politics in this country and have respect for each other. Both Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil have similar policies on some things, but not all, otherwise we will have tweedledum and tweedledee for another four years.
We know the election process is now complete when Labour begins to create the impression that it is wrestling with its conscience on whether or not to prop up a new right-of-centre Government (‘Labour leader Ivana Bacik says party’s absolute goal is to build left alliance’, Irish Examiner, December 5).
There are no prizes for the correct prediction as to where this is likely to end up, but — suffice to say — the most vulnerable among us, such as lone parents, the homeless etc, are wondering why on Earth they will have to endure another FF/FG/Labour Government.