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Israeli Envoy to Dublin Says Criticism of Israel Is Unjust
(Independent-Ireland) Hugh O'Connell - Israeli ambassador to Ireland Ophir Kariv said on Friday that his wife and son at home in Modiin, a town halfway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, are "running in and out of the safe room" as Hamas has been firing hundreds of rockets from Gaza. Kariv believes the issue is not his government's response but the "massive terrorist attack on Israel" that "appears to be taken quite lightly here [in Ireland] sometimes." He said that Israel is going to "painful efforts" to try and avoid civilian targets and casualties. "If we speak specifically about Palestinian civilians, they are innocent victims, and they are victims first and foremost of Hamas, because what Hamas is doing there is a double war crime," he said. "First they fire at Israeli civilians and at the same time they are using their own citizens as human shields, and this is something that cannot be accepted." Kariv rejects parallels to historic conflicts with Britain in Ireland. "It's not a foreign land, it's not someone who goes to explore the world, find a new place, and take it or just crosses an area of sea in order to expand. This is a land with 3,000 years of Jewish history, a very profound one, so the parallel in this sense is totally false."