Israel Embassy Irish Official Suspended for Condemning Gaza Attack
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Remains of Gaza attack, O'Carroll lost her job for condemning it |
DUBLIN,
July 27 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A press officer at the
Israeli Embassy in Dublin was suspended after Irish newspapers Friday,
July 26, 2002, published a letter she wrote strongly condemning
Israel's deadly air strike on Gaza City, news agencies reported.
"Israel's
government must take responsibility for this atrocity and do
everything it can to prevent its air force doing this kind of thing in
the future," Noreen O'Carroll said in her letter to Irish
national newspapers, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"I
am sick at heart at this, as I am at each and every attack on Israeli
citizens.
"But
a missile attack on an apartment building, after midnight when
children and adults are asleep in their beds, is no more justifiable
than a suicide bombing.
"I
am appalled and ashamed of the current Israeli government for
sanctioning this and other similar operations," O'Carroll added.
"I
am also appalled and ashamed of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's
cold-hearted response to it, stating that it was 'one of our greatest
successes'. Has he any heart, any moral sense at all?"
Signing
the letter in her capacity as press officer, O'Carroll, an Irish
citizen, wrote that she wanted to add her voice to those
"condemning utterly the horrific Israeli air force attack in
Gaza" on Monday, July 22, 2002.
The
bombing by an Israeli U.S.-made F-16 warplane destroyed six homes,
killed the Hamas military leader Salah Shehadeh with his bodyguard and
13 civilians, including nine children. The widely condemned raid also
wounded about 150 Palestinians, majority of them children and women.
O'Carroll
was recruited locally by the Embassy almost two years ago.
For
his part, Boaz Rodkin, a counselor at the Israeli embassy in Dublin,
said O'Carroll was "under suspension" and her position was
under review by the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Tel Aviv.
He
said Embassy officials received no advance notice that the letter was
going to be circulated and he first learned about it when he read the
newspapers.
"No
one could be expected to ignore the letter. It is not a question of
freedom of speech. Everyone is of course entitled to their own views.
"But
then again no one can be abusing their position of employment to
express private views in such a public fashion," Rodkin added.
"You
don't expect to pay wages to someone who was recruited to express
government positions and then to criticize that government and still
be employed by the embassy."
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