Eoghan Harris: Government is right about Ivor, wrong about Israel
Last week, the Government got tough on two issues: Ivor Callely's expenses and Israel's botched attempt to board a Turkish vessel of Islamist militants. Both stands secured wide popular support. But the stand against Israel was far from wise.
Calling Callely to account was critical if Fianna Fail is to fight the next General Election with clean hands. But the Irish Government will regret its radical-chic decision to back a motley band of Irish and Turkish militants against the democratic state of Israel.
There is a Callely connection. Callely is a member of the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee which last week summoned Dr Zion Evrony to account for Israel's actions. The Ambassador passed on the invite, missing a great chance to be grilled by a politician of Callely's calibre.
The pity is that the Callely affair taints all politicians. Just as the bad behaviour of a minority marginalises decent public servants, priests and -- as I found out in Tralee last week -- idealistic instructors who work in FAS.
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By now everybody has expressed their annoyance at Callely. Rather than recycle their rage, I want to make two points largely ignored by the media.
First, I want to pay tribute to Senator Marc MacSharry of Fianna Fail. By now everybody is calling Callely to account. But last Tuesday, when the matter was first raised in the Seanad, Senator MacSharry was the only Fianna Fail senator to take a firm stand.
Senator MacSharry, like Deputy Niall Collins in Limerick, is one of those serious politicians who follow their family's centrist footsteps, act with good authority and reject the radical-chic posturing of the Chris Andrews clique. As Edmund Burke said of Pitt the Younger, they are "not chips off the old block, but the old block itself". Both are future Taoiseach material.
Second, Callely's claims came out of a culture of entitlement which ran right through the public sector and only perished last year. It was still in place when I joined the Seanad in 2007. As someone who is still slow to call a taxi, I found the lavish expenses of Leinster House literally hard to believe.
What baffled me was politicians could be so cut off from economic reality. In my first week a colleague advised me to claim mileage from my second "abode" (as Callely calls it) in Baltimore. Which I might have done if I were clinically insane and blind to the recession roaring down the road.
Context is all, of course. Back in 2000 nobody might have cared which house Callely called home. But by late 2007 and early 2008 every single euro of expenses was under the microscope and the public's eye was at the other end peering in.
So while I wanted to do the right thing, I, not being just a goody-goody when I refused to employ a relation in 2007, took a voluntary pay cut in 2008, and claimed only one day a week for Dublin DART travel in 2010. No, I was also making sure I was not lynched by a media mob led by leftie hacks -- many of them experts on padding expenses -- who do not like my politics.
Looking back, my media foes did me a major favour. They helped me stay on the straight and narrow. I hope to help some of them do the same in future.
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But while I support the Government's handling of the Callely affair, I cannot support its stance on Israel. We too had to defend our democracy in the past. To the death.
Israel is a democratic state engaged in an armed conflict with Hamas, the equivalent, not of the Provos, but of the Real IRA. In fighting such an enemy, Israel has every right to blockade Gaza and search shipping for arms.
True, the IDF made a mess of the action. And fell into a media trap. The IDF did not anticipate the Turkish boat would be packed with Islamic militants, who laid into the lightly armed IDF troops with iron bars until the Israelis were forced to fire their pistols or be battered to death.
But I will no more stop supporting Israel when its actions go awry, than I would abandon the Allies for bombing Dresden. Most of the Irish media do not agree, because (a) most of
them were formed in journalism schools where the default position is anti-American and anti-Israeli, and (b) they are suckers for political theatre.
Let me pause to point out that arguing the pros and cons is a complete waste of time. I spent my life taking sides in various ideological wars -- mostly against the Provisional IRA -- but I never met anyone whose mind was changed by debating.
But in the face of the media frenzy I want to record my reasons for rejecting the politics of anti-Israeli Irish activists like Shane Dillon and Fintan Lane. They do not represent me nor a substantial minority of Irish people. That includes Mick Brophy from Tralee.
Mick lived in Saudi Arabia and knows the score. He specifically asked me to say that anything Chris Andrews supports comes under the heading of "south side s***e" and is likely to be fundamentally flawed. Apart from Andrews, here are six other reasons.
First, a state of armed conflict exits between Israel and the Gaza regime of Hamas -- which is considered a terrorist organisation by the European Union. Second, the IDF had no problem in boarding five out of the six vessels. But Turkish militants on the last boat put up a fight to make political capital.
Third, many of the Irish activists did not act like humanitarian helpers. If they wanted to aid the people of Gaza they would simply have sent a cheque to the Red Cross. Fourth, the flotilla was planned as a piece of political theatre, an internet intifada to isolate Israel, casting it as the villain and Hamas as the heroes.
Fifth, among the "aid" organisations taking part was the Turkish IHH, which supports Hamas. In 2006 the Danish Institute for International Studies reported links between IHH and al-Qaeda.
Six, some of the Irish participants have already admitted that the flotilla was about activism not aid. Shane Dillon, captain of the Challenger I, told the Joint Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee (which included Senator Callely) that his own boat was carrying 17 activist members of the 'Free Gaza Movement' -- but no aid.
Let me make a prediction. Keep pandering to Hamas and that bad karma will come back on us. We face a hard fight with our own Hamas up North. We should defend democracy.
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A last word about the late Alan Ruddock. Kevin Myers measured this man of honour in a moving tribute in last Tuesday's Irish Independent. All I can add is that Alan, for whom I worked, was brave in body and soul, fearless in the fight against the Provisional IRA, limitless in his love for his family. Ar dheis De go raibh a anam uasal.
- Eoghan Harris
Originally published in
