Sir, – In welcoming the exclusion of services from the Occupied Territories Bill (Letters, May 30th), David Woods deems it appropriate to turn a serious issue of international law and human suffering into flippant satire about the Irish housing crisis.
His suggestion that Taoiseach Micheál Martin might ask Israel’s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu what the secret is to building so many homes in Israeli settlements in the West Bank is not merely in poor taste; it is also morally blind to what those settlements actually are.
They are illegal under international law and exist through the ongoing displacement of Palestinians from their land, enforced by state-backed military occupation and an escalating pattern of settler violence carried out with impunity.
That violence includes repeated attacks on Palestinian villages, arson of homes and crops, intimidation of civilians and killings that go unpunished or are met with minimal accountability. In that context, to treat illegal settlements as a source of planning inspiration is grotesque.
RM Block
A serious discussion on Ireland’s housing challenges does not require reference to the machinery of occupation and displacement. Invoking it in this way does nothing except trivialise both issues. – Yours, etc,
SÉAMUS WHITE,
Stoneybatter,
Dublin 7.
