Irish Examiner view: Israel's history of conflict has long reach
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However, this does not obscure the fact that Israel has always regarded assassination, or extraction, on foreign territory as a legitimate weapon in the armoury against its enemies and is prepared to take a long view on retribution and justice. This has its roots in paramilitary actions established before Israel became a nation in 1948.
Anglo-Irish politician Baron Moyne — Walter Edward Guinness from Dublin, the great-great grandson of the brewer Arthur Guinness — was murdered by the Jewish terrorist group Lehi, known also as the Stern Gang, in Cairo in 1944 while he was Middle East minister.
Famously, the Israeli security and intelligence services, Shin Bet and the Mossad, captured the German/Austrian Holocaust official Adolf Eichmann 15 years after the end of the Second World War and removed him from his house on Garibaldi St, Buenos Aires. He was smuggled out of Argentina, which protested to the United Nations that its sovereignty had been violated.
Eichmann was placed on trial in Jerusalem and hanged in 1962 for crimes against humanity, war crimes, crimes against the Jewish people, and membership of a criminal organisation. The UN agreed that Argentina’s rights had been infringed through the clandestine abduction of a Nazi war criminal.
Under those circumstances, it shouldn’t surprise us if the next example of the extensive reach of Israeli retribution — the payback for the massacre of athletes by Black September terrorists at the Munich Olympics in 1972 — became an even darker and legendary episode in that country’s history.
On that occasion, Israel authorised its agents to track down and kill anyone who had played a role in the attack. This included a raid by special forces on Palestine Liberation Organisation targets across the Lebanese border in Beirut and Sidon.
Prominent in those attacks was an operative who would go on to lead the successful “raid on Entebbe” in 1976 to release 102 hostages held by Arab and German terrorists supported by the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. That commander would die in the attack at the age of 30. He was ‘Yoni’ Netanyahu, elder brother of Israel’s current prime minister.
It has always been a matter of dramatic speculation as to how the course of history may have been changed by an assassin succeeding or failing. What would have happened if Archduke Franz Ferdinand had changed his itinerary after the first attempt to kill him in Sarajevo? What if Michael Collins had survived? What if Hitler had stopped a bullet? Or if Kennedy had lived?
Given its tradition of direct action and sense of history, Israel will regard next week’s application by South Africa to the International Court of Justice to prevent acts of potential genocide with some interest, not to say equanimity. Indeed, as the fatal drone attack on the deputy Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri indicates, military strategists are already moving on to their next phase.
Israel plans to defend itself, reversing a previous boycott of this court and has hired leading British KC, human rights specialist Professor Malcom Shaw, to argue its case. At best, it will be able to demonstrate that its actions do not meet the definition of “intentionally destroying, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. At worst, it will have gambled, and lost.
Readers can determine whether that is likely to change its war aim of eradicating Hamas.
Ireland might not be participating in Euro 2024, but who cares? There’s something just as good taking place at the same time. Line up the cocktails at The Dead Rabbit. Get on the vagabond shoes. Big Apple, here we come for cricket’s T20 World Cup.
The competition commences on June 4 and will be fought out across the Caribbean and, for the first time ever, in the US, with matches scheduled for Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Morrisville, North Carolina; and Long Island, New York, after an earlier plan to build a stadium in Van Cortland Park was scrapped following a civic row.
It was revealed yesterday that Ireland will play all of their games Stateside against current T50 champions India, as well as Pakistan, USA, and Canada, with their first game on Wednesday, June 5, in New York against the might of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Jasprit Bumrah.
Whether the encounter can recapture the magic of the Giants Stadium in 1994 or Soldier Field in 2016 we cannot yet say, but given that India command a huge following, coupled with the depth of the Irish diaspora, a place at the 34,000-capacity Eisenhower Park is likely to be one of the sought-after tickets of 2024.
The top two teams from each of the five groups progress to the next round, and despite the talents of the Pakistan team, their mercurial performances mean that Ireland coach Heinrich Malan and his squad can travel in hope. Ireland’s ex-pats, he said, can be his team’s secret weapon.
Every so often, someone in authority says something which may not be particularly novel— it might be a statement of the blindingly obvious. However, that does not mean it is unworthy of repetition and public attention. And action.
It is one of the signs of contemporary affluence for most of us that our relationship with food has become astonishingly blasé. For those brought up in harder times, the cornucopia of foods and styles of cooking is often difficult to contemplate.
So are the levels of waste which accompany the abundance. Our grandparents would have thought it shameful. And our grandparents would have been right.
We can support Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue when he says restaurants and outlets need to cut down on the portions they place on consumers’ plates, not as an attempt to swell profits through ‘shrinkflation’, but because it is socially irresponsible, or even selfish, to throw food away.
Mr McConalogue, from a farming background, was speaking after new data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revealed that Ireland generated about 770,316 tonnes of food waste in 2020, costing the average household about €60 a month or €700 a year, or an annual national cost of €1.29bn.
While economy is a laudable objective, even more so when some of the population is reliant on food banks, there are other areas which suggest that we are overdue an audit of what we eat.
In a controversial book, an infectious diseases doctor and broadcaster, Chris van Tulleken, tries to find a way through the confusing lists of ingredients which may, or may not, be bad for us.
His rule of thumb is: “If it’s wrapped in plastic and has at least one ingredient that you would not usually find in a standard home kitchen, it’s ultra-processed food.”
This crude measure exists because there is no standard definition of what constitutes an ultra-processed food, and studies as to their adverse health outcomes are in their infancy. There is, however, little argument about the foods which are helpful: Vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, and legumes. Expert research from Queen’s University in Belfast is now warning that plant-based substitute meats are of little nutritional value and can be higher in additives and gums and emulsifiers than whole foods.
Who knew that the kitchen could be so dangerous? How much easier might it be to have Julia Child tell us what to eat? Or to remember Oscar Wilde’s advice: “Moderation in everything, including moderation.”