Dear Tom Carew
I saw your mail to Prof. Giora.
I think there is a simple answer: if you do not think that the occupation is a form of terrorism, and if you do no think that Israel is committing war crimes on a daily basis, there is no point in debating this issue.
Thanks
Ofer Neiman
Israeli citizen
p.s
Your presumed fondness of ignorant-fundamentalist Sarah Palin (your blog) will not help to convince us either:
http://safra-vesaifa.blogspot.com/2008/09/palin-reason-to-grin-and-going-to-win.html
and please beware, an impostor is making you look like a supporter of genocide
""Proportionality in War
by Tom Carew (Dublin , Ireland)
If the enemy is the aggressor, and you are defending your rights — especially your right to live, and live free from terror — then the aggressor has simply forfeited any right to life. The number of the aggressors it is legitimate to kill is whatever number of fatalities will permanently eliminate their threat — not just temporarily halt their current assault, but also their capability to resume their aggression at a future time of their choosing. And the more fanatical they are, the more of them it will prove unavoidable to eliminate — possibly every single one.""
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----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2010 8:47 PM
Subject:Prof. Rachel Giora, Tel Aviv University:campaign against CRH, Tallaght, Dublin, Ireland
Dear Rachel,
I first became an active, elected representative in the Irish trade union movement in 1975, which is now 35 years ago. I was nominated by the ICTU, the national federation of unions in Ireland, to represent it on various bodies. I have always been very involved in international solidarity, such as with Polish workers in *Solidarnosc*, oppressed by the communist regime there under the military dictator and Kremlin puppet, Jarezelski, with South African workers in the Anti-Apartheid struggle, and with British public service workers dismissed for refusing to leave their union by the Thatcher government.
I was elected to be President of my own union, and was also for 15 years a full-time trade union official. And I spent 15 years representing the trade union movement on the Board of Directors, mostly as Board Chair, of the Trade Union Unemployed Center in Tallaght, which is where the HQ of CRH [ Cement Roadstone Holdings ] is based. And it has been an area in Dublin with historically very heavy unemployment, which is again increasing in recent years with the current extremely severe recession -in Ireland it is on a scale vastly worse than what Israel is experiencing.
I therefore judge it an act of aggression against my people, and above all against the most vulnerable in my country, the unemployed, for any foreigners to attempt to destroy jobs in Ireland, or destroy a successful Irish company.
As an Irishman very actively involved for many years in peace and reconciliation initiatives within my Island, I can also assure you, from our long experience in Ireland, that successful work in this field is not based on demonizing one side.
Finally, you might ask how representative are those voices in Ireland to which you claim to listen. Since 1975, I have not met them in the ranks of those working to advance the unemployed in Ireland, or to support struggle of Polish workers against communist repression, or in building reconciliation within Ireland, or ever raising their voice to support either trade unionists in Gaza whose free movement was destroyed by Hamas following their 2007 seizure of power in Gaza, or women suffering under increasing denial of freedom by the Hamas regime. They also never support a two-state solution. They never even mention, much less support, the unique agreement for co-operation concluded in 2008 between PGFTU and Histadrut, and sponsored by the global trade union body, ITUC.
Those are the concrete, measurable, practical standards by which I determine the legitimacy and reality of those who would call themselves *progressive*.
I have however known many of those you now seem to regard as valid voices from Ireland, as very involved on the side of the enemies of democratic campaigns - such as the long campaign of tribal terror waged by the Provisional IRA from 1970. Others have preferred the path of marxist revolutionary agitation to the long, hard slog of gradual reform and progress.
Neither element can claim to speak for the people of Ireland, and have no right or mandate to incite foreigners to destroy jobs in Ireland.
And while 55 unions are members of the national union federation in Ireland, ICTU, only 2 of the trade unions based in Ireland, both composed of public servants who are guaranteed they will not be made redundant, have ever supported any boycott or sanctions agiasnt Israel. And neither consulted their members on this issue. It is also significant that it is only the homeland of the Jewish people, Israel, never eg Sudan which presides over mass slaughter in Darfur, as it did in Southern Sudan before that, which is singled out for such discrimination.
By what right do you try to destroy jobs in Ireland, especially in a company based in one of the worst unemployment areas on the entire Island ?
By what right do you, from the comfort of a tenured and secure academic position in an Israeli university, presume to reject the considered judgment of the global [ ITUC ] and European [ ETUC ] trade union movements, and try to destroy Irish, Palestinian or Israeli jobs ?
Tom
