MICHAEL D Higgins has been an outstanding first citizen of Ireland for the past 14 years and has represented his country with distinction during good times and bad.
Few of the issues he has faced have been more traumatic than the conflict in Gaza over the past 16 months, which has already resulted in an appalling death toll running into many tens of thousands and come close to developing into a full-scale war across the region.
It is essential that the president should highlight the devastation endured by ordinary people and the shocking breaches of basic human rights which were inflicted on all sides.
During all his public statements, he has condemned both the Hamas cross-border attack of October 7, 2023, when 1,200 people died and 250 hostages were taken, and the subsequent Israeli government response, which has led to an estimated 47,000 deaths, mainly involving women and children, in Gaza.
He needed to observe all the sensitivities of the occasion when he addressed the weekend Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration in Dublin, marking 80 years since the end of World War II, and he will have noted all the representations made by the Jewish community in advance of the gathering.
However, it would have been entirely wrong for the president to avoid referring to the terrible events of recent months while reflecting on the unimaginable suffering witnessed throughout the Holocaust.
His words were measured, as he stressed that genocide must be opposed whenever and wherever it occurs, and his views will have been strongly endorsed by the vast majority of Irish people, north and south.
Those who disagreed with the president had just as much right to engage in peaceful protests as do the pro-Palestinian campaigners who regularly take to the streets in huge numbers in all parts of Ireland, and they should not have been asked to leave the Mansion House in Dublin.
The Times of London was equally entitled to challenge the stance taken by President Higgins, but it was not acceptable that Britain’s paper of record should set out its position yesterday under the blatantly patronising and insensitive two-word headline ‘Irish Stew’.
Many of the points put forward by the editorial in The Times belonged to a different era, and failed to grasp that Ireland is an independent nation which can maintain its own policies without following the deeply questionable decisions taken by successive Westminster administrations over the decades.
Irish citizens want to see a peaceful resolution to the massive problems facing the Middle East, are determined to speak out against all forms of injustice and will stand firmly behind their president.
