https://jihadwatch.org/2025/01/irish-archbishop-gives-his-imprimatur-to-the-most-grotesque-false-charge-against-israel?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=
Eamon Martin, the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, has a spittle-flecked message for Israel:”Irish Catholic Archbishop: Israeli response to Hamas ‘merciless and disproportionate,’” by Michael Starr, Jerusalem Post, January 2, 2025:
“I highlight Gaza not only because of the severe impact of this conflict but because it is emblematic of the failure of the international community to prevent the escalation of conflict and to protect civilians,” said Martin. “This is despite rulings of the International Court of Justice on protection from genocide, on illegal occupation of Territories, and on systemic discrimination.”
Martin has given his imprimatur to the grotesque charge that in Gaza Israel has been committing genocide. The only attempt at “genocide” in this whole business was that displayed by Hamas on October 7, 2023, when its operatives raped, tortured, and murdered Israelis, gouging out eyes and cutting off genitalia of some of its victims before killing them. The IDF has not been committing “genocide” in Gaza. The IDF has facilitated the delivery of 1.1 tons of humanitarian aid, which is not what an army hellbent on genocide would do. Only 13,000 civilians in Gaza, out of a total population of 2.2 million, have died as a result of the war. And it must be repeated: the IDF has made unprecedented efforts to minimize civilian casualties by warning people away from places about to be targeted. Hamas, on the other hand, by embedding its operatives and hiding its weapons in civilian areas, is deliberately trying to maximize civilian casualties.
Martin said that with more sophisticated and powerful weapons being employed in streets, homes, hospitals, and schools, modern warfare had become indistinguishable from terrorism.
“How can tactics, which cause thousands of civilian deaths, alongside the whole scale [sic] destruction of food, water, health services, and other infrastructure that is essential for survival, ever hope to restore justice and rights, resolve differences, respect human dignity, or provide a path for reconciliation and peace?” asserted the archbishop.
More “sophisticated” weapons have allowed the IDF to strike terrorist targets with greater precision, thus minimizing collateral damage. As for Martin’s charge about the “whole scale” (sic) “destruction of food, water, health services and other infrastructure,” every part of this claim is preposterous. The IDF does not “destroy” food and water in Gaza, but supplies both to the Gazans. The IDF cannot, however, be blamed if, once the trucks bringing the aid are inside Gaza, some of that aid is seized by Hamas both for distribution to its own members and for sale to ordinary Gazans. Nor is Israel destroying “health services” — that is, hospitals. It is Hamas, by hiding its weapons and men, sometimes hundreds of them, inside hospitals, that makes not the hospitals in their entirety, but the places where those men and weapons are located, legitimate targets of the IDF.
Martin is the latest Irish religious leader to issue harsh criticism of Israel’s conduct during the Israel-Hamas War, with Anglican Church of Ireland Canon David Oxley claiming on Remembrance Sunday that the IDF had a cruel policy of targeting schools, hospitals, and mosques, and that Israelis saw Jews as a “master race” – a term usually associated with Nazi ideology.
The Catholic Archbishop Eamon Martin is deplorable, but far worse is the openly antisemitic Anglican Church of Ireland Canon David Oxley, who dares to claim that Israelis see Jews as a “master race.” The Jews as the new Nazis? But why then did that “master race” allow the 160,000 Arabs in Israel in 1949 to not only live, but to multiply until there are now two million Arabs in Israel? And why did the Jews who won control of Gaza in the Six-Day War allow the 400,000 Arabs in Gaza in 1967 to increase until there were 1.2 million Arabs in the Strip when Israel withdrew in 2005? And why did Israel allow the 900,000 Arabs who were living in the West Bank in 1967 to become the three million living there today? Surely the “master race” could have prevented all that.
And if the Israelis believe that Jews are the “master race,” as Oxley claims, why are Arabs allowed to serve on Israel’s Supreme Court, to sit in the Knesset, to have their own political parties? Why are those “inferior” Arabs allowed to become doctors and treat Jewish patients? Why does the “master race” allow Arabs to serve side-by-side with Jews in the military? Or let Arabs play on the same sports teams, and in the same orchestras, or to work with Jews in the same offices and factories? Why does the “master race” of Jews in Israel provide medical care to Arabs, and let Arabs provide medical care to Jews? Why do the “master race” Jews allow Arabs to become the heads of Israeli companies, including the largest. bank in Israel? Why does that “master race” make such tremendous efforts to spare the lives of the “inferior” Arabs in Gaza with its elaborate warnings about targeted sites? Perhaps Canon Oxley should look into the Qur’an, where he will discover that it is Muslims, not Jews, who are taught that they are the “best of peoples” and non-Muslims are “the most vile of created beings.”
