Letter: ​RTE has taken a partisan stance against Israel on Gaza yet seeks no sanction against countries like Iran who help Hamas

RTE’s recent statement that the broadcaster will Boycott the Eurovision Song Contest if Israel is allowed to compete plays into the antisemitic rope that all Israeli people, particularly Israeli Jews, are to be held responsible and shunned as a consequence of their government’s prosecution of the war against Hamas in Gaza.

In doing so, RTE are taking their lead from the National Union of Journalists who along with other trade unions support an economic, academic, cultural and sporting boycott of Israeli Jewish people.

At a time of an internationally accepted explosion of Jew and Muslim hate throughout Ireland and Europe arising from Hamas October 7 atrocities and the Israeli government response, I asked RTE and the NUJ what working definitions of antisemitism and Islamophobia do they test their reporting against to ensure they weren’t contributing to Jew or Muslim hate.

Both organisations responded that they have no such working definitions.

It is clear to me that RTE and the NUJ have taken a partisan anti Israel stance on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. However it is telling that both RTE and the NUJ seek no sanction against Iran, Egypt, Turkey and Qatar, countries who offer military and political assistance to Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Islamic terrorists who are at war with Jewish people.

I believe that holding all Jewish people responsible for the actions of the Israeli government is antisemitic and holding all Muslim people in Gaza responsible for the actions of Iran and Hamas is Islamophobic.

I am sure that all this will ‘go over the heads’ of RTE and the NUJ as they have no understanding of what antisemitism or Islamophobia is.

Gerry Cullen, Independent Left, Dungannon