Letters to the Editor: British government seeks to appeal to a humanity that it itself lacks
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This is the West’s morality. We can listen to hours and hours of lamenting from British members of parliament in the House of Commons over the depravities of Assad when the West equals any other state, force, or army in its use of terror.
Britain has been arming Israel, and RAF planes have been conducting surveillance flights over Gaza taking off from a base in Cyprus and providing intelligence to Israel. The UK is more than complicit in genocide. The UK is participating in genocide. But because UK members quibble in parliament over the definition of ‘genocide’ they can pretend that “up to 186,000, or even more deaths... attributable to the current conflict in Gaza” is not genocide ( , July 2024).
In the case of Gaza, they refuse to follow the science whereas during the pandemic, following the science was put across as a moral obligation.
“When it’s convenient to them [the West] funds the Mujahideen in Afghanistan and when al Qaeda is formed they declare that [to be] the number one terrorist group... terrorists one minute, our allies the next” (David Hearst, ).
The British government is now negotiating with a known terrorist group in Syria whose members were formerly murdering British and American troops in Iraq and elsewhere. This is well within living memory of the invasion of Iraq and the collapse of that country, partly justified in terms of Saddam’s alleged links to al Qaeda.
Britain’s links to al Qaeda go back to at least the 1990s when Britain provided refuse knowingly to Islamist terrorists on the unspoken assumption that if they were given a safe haven they would not attack Britain and would presumably focus their terrorism abroad in what was termed pretentiously as a covenant of security (Mark Curtis, Secret Affairs, 2010).
The hypocrisy couldn’t be more blatant. It’s all an absolute sham and the next time the British government brings morality into an issue we should see it for what it is.
They are appealing to the humanity in us, whereas it’s revealed time and again, governments lack humanity.
Thank you for livestreaming the winter solstice sunrise phenomenon at Newgrange. It is amazing that we can share in this special event from our own home.
The commentary was reverential and informative explaining what we were witnessing so we could appreciate the wonder of what we were seeing.
The commentary ended by reminding us that after the darkness there is light, At this Christmas time, it reminds us that Jesus came to bring light to the world.
Putin’s declaration of readiness for peace talks on Ukraine may be akin to what the spider said to the fly: “Come into my parlour said a spider to the fly; it’s the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy.”
Donald Trump (and the EU) needs to be up early the day he commences such talks, lest he has the same fate as the fly.
Yet again Europe’s fate is being decided by our two powerful neighbours and not Europe itself.
The recent big political decision by the Israelis to close their embassy in Dublin was to my mind performative nonsense which I suppose shows that Ireland has gotten under their skin by being forthright and moral in relation to its position on what Israel is doing in Palestine.
I think the majority of Irish people were appalled by what happened on October 7, 2023, when we had the attack by Hamas, a terrorist organisation who went and murdered so many Israeli people and kidnapped others. It was absolutely an outrageous act of terrorism by Hamas who were sponsored by the likes of Iran.
At that time, the Irish government consistently condemned this egregious attack, which is something that I feel is often forgotten about by some of the Israeli commentators.
I believe that the vast preponderance of Irish people are outraged by what they have witnessed in the utterly disproportionate and disgraceful response by Israel. It’s hard to find the words to adequately describe the disgrace of what Israel has done in Gaza and Lebanon too. As Israel went after these terrorists, we had the mass murder of innocent civilians. Ireland has also been at the forefront in relation to the recognition of Palestine. I do hope that the new government will put the Occupied Territories Bill into place.
It’s not nice to see the Israelis trying to undermine opinion when it comes to Ireland.
I am acutely aware that Ireland’s stance vis-à-vis Israel could create potential economic damage for our country.
I say that because there still remains an ill-informed pro-Israeli lobby in the United States, that will say that Ireland is not a friendly country to Israel, ergo, American multinationals should not invest in Ireland.
One has to worry that this pressure might become even greater once the Occupied Territories Bill is passed. In the final analysis. I believe that Ireland’s response to this imbroglio is the moral and correct thing to do. We are talking about 45,000 people dead, 2.3m people displaced, 17,000 kids dead. The attacks, murder, and genocide have been indiscriminate. I can’t in all conscience defend the Israelis on this one. I am acutely aware that Israel will take issue with the word genocide but let’s call a spade a spade.
Winter solstice on Saturday, December 21, was the shortest day of the year. From now on, daylight gradually increases until the summer solstice in June. Although winter is the dormant season of darkness and cold, winter solstice marks the sun returning north and the days getting longer. Celebrations of returning light are common in history with festivals around the time of winter solstice. Fires were lit to symbolise the heat, light, and life-giving properties of the returning sun.
Christians all over the world celebrate the birth of Christ on Christmas Day. We decorate our homes with lights to welcome the birth of the “true light of the world”. Similar to the old 12-day pagan festivals, which celebrated the rebirth of the sun god, Sol Invictus, at the winter solstice, Christians celebrate the “12 days of Christmas” to welcome the birth of Christ.
Many struggling families have little to celebrate this Christmas with charitable organisations being inundated with calls for help, as more and more families throughout Ireland suffer hardship. The number of requests coming in for much-needed food, fuel, clothing, and toys has already surpassed last year’s figures. Keep a kind thought also for people, especially children, suffering in conflict-ravaged areas throughout the world for whom Christmas brings no tidings of comfort and joy.
Hopefully, the rebirth of light will brighten the way for people of all religions and none this festive season. The light will shine brighter if we share just a fraction of our resources with the war-torn, the needy, the isolated, the lonely, and the homeless this Christmas season.
Aer Lingus claims that “competition from KLM” forced it to cancel its Cork-Amsterdam route from March 2025 onwards.
While initially this might seem a credible argument, a little research shows that it’s not true — KLM’s prices are a multiple of those of Aer Lingus.
To test this, I “booked” a one-week return trip for two to Cork from Amsterdam with both Aer Lingus and KLM on the same dates in January, February, and March of next year, and then just for KLM for the rest of the year until September. The Aer Lingus prices stayed at €168 and KLM just spiralled upwards, from €481 in January to €773 in August. So why would anyone fly with KLM?
I have travelled this route three or four times yearly since 1998 and have never had to pay prices like these with Aer Lingus.
One other concern is that many Dutch travel organisations offering fly/drive arrangements to Cork airport have already booked flights with Aer Lingus for the entire summer period, and may still not be aware of the cancellation.