Irish Archbishop Eamon Martin decried the Israeli response to Hamas attacks as merciless and disproportionate in a New Year’s Day message, delivered at a time of increased criticism by Ireland and the Catholic Church toward Israel’s prosecution of the multi-front Levantine war.
The Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland said on Tuesday that while the Hamas-led October 7 attacks were “egregious” and hostages were still being held in Gaza, the IDF’s response was “merciless and disproportionate.”
“Over 45,000 people, including 17,000 children, have been cut down; two million people forcibly displaced; almost the entire population of Gaza is living in extreme hunger, and despite the reality of catastrophic famine conditions for hundreds of thousands of desperate civilians, humanitarian access is effectively blocked,” said Martin.
"International Humanitarian Law says that parties to a conflict cannot use disproportionate measures to achieve military objectives. The near-complete destruction of Gaza and the bringing of its population to the brink of famine is, by any standard, a disproportionate measure.”
Martin noted that others that had expressed similar views had been accused of antisemitism, and assured that he abhorred Hamas and other Islamist groups and supported the rights of Israelis to live in peace and security.
However, the Catholic leader cautioned that the right had to be achieved with a “just peace” in which the rights of Palestinians were protected by international law.
“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 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 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.
Irish religious leaders' criticism of Israel
MARTIN IS 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.
“This takes different forms in different times and places, but it is the same horrible idea, that one group of people is intrinsically more valuable than any other. Once that is accepted, then the elimination of others follows as a matter of course – because they don’t count,” Oxley said at the Dublin Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on November 10.
With President Michael D. Higgins, Dublin Mayor James Geoghegan, and other dignitaries in attendance, Oxley contended that a far-right ideology that gave preferential treatment to certain groups also generated resentment of international bodies that promote universal rights.
“We have seen this, for example, in the aggression of Netanyahu’s government towards the Secretary of the United Nations; in the contempt shown to the international courts, as if they should dare to hold Israel to account; and in the attacks on the UNIFIL forces in Lebanon,” said Oxley, taking pride that the Irish government had drawn Israeli ire for its position on the conflict.
Oxley said that while the soldiers of the two world wars also did cruelties, out of the conflict came a better world, this was not the case with Israel’s multi-front war against Hamas and Iranian proxies.
“Whatever peace and security the Israeli regime hopes to achieve by the considerable damage done to the leadership and resources of Hamas and Hezbollah, what is most obvious to the rest of the world is the desolation and destruction wrought in Gaza, in Lebanon, and in the West Bank. Shalom, it is not,” said Oxley. “The policy of targeting schools and hospitals and mosques; the starvation and the constant need to move elsewhere; going back again and again to bomb people who have already been deprived of home and happiness and everything else – is such cruelty necessary? Does it not tend to dehumanize the aggressor as well as the victim? And what of the constant refusal to take responsibility? The unending mantra of the IDF: This is the fault of Hamas. But it is your hands that have pulled the trigger, that have dropped the bomb that took that child’s legs, that woman’s life, that family’s home.”
OXLEY’S STATEMENTS were criticized by Irish Chief Rabbi Yoni Wieder, who said in a November 19 letter that his Nazi master race reference was taken by many of the Jewish community to be “intended to be deliberately hurtful and traumatizing to Jewish people” by suggesting that “Jewish people have adopted the same murderous outlook that was perpetuated against them by the Nazis.”
Wieder also argued that Oxley’s analysis of war conduct “ completely disregards the realities of a war fought against Jihadist terrorist organizations intent on Israel’s destruction.”
“You claim Israel has a policy of targeting schools, hospitals, and mosques, yet you fail to mention that Hamas purposefully positions itself within and beneath such civilian infrastructure – and they do so precisely because they know it will deter attacks against them,” said Wieder. “Hamas have openly stated that it is their strategy to place civilians in harm’s way. Here, too, you chose a highly selective and distorted version of events that vilifies Israel and portrays them as intentionally targeting civilians and children.”
The Irish Government’s own criticism of Israel’s wartime conduct, and its intervention in South Africa’s International Court of Justice genocide case against Israel, in which Ireland called for the broadening of the definition of genocide, led Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar to decide to close the Israeli embassy on December 15.
Martin’s criticism also comes as the pope has been heavily criticized by Jewish leaders for his own “inflammatory” statements.
Francis said last Saturday that an Israeli operation was “cruelty” rather than war, and said in a book excerpt published on November 17 that “What is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide,” and “We should investigate carefully to assess whether this fits into the technical definition [of genocide] formulated by international jurists and organizations.”
In response to the airstrike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Reuters reported that the pope said, “Defense must always be proportionate to the attack. When there is something disproportionate, you see a tendency to dominate that goes beyond morality.”