In recent weeks, leaders from the European Union, the UK and the US have stood shoulder to shoulder with Benjamin Netanyahu, expressing support for Israel’s “right to defend itself”, a slogan that has wreaked horror on Gaza following Hamas’s horrific attack on Israeli civilians and security forces.
Ireland has been an outlier. While the taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has said that Israel has a right to defend itself, he added the following qualification: “but Israel doesn’t have the right to do wrong.” Early on in the bombardment of Gaza, he also said: “To me, it amounts to collective punishment.” At an EU level, the country has been pushing – along with Spain – for a humanitarian “ceasefire” to bring an end to the violence, rather than the option of a “pause”.
