VISITORS TO THE Holocaust History Museum at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem take a unique if circuitous passage through its numerous exhibits and galleries.
The path through the triangular, concrete hallway is riven by shallow trenches which shepherd visitors into a series of dimly lit galleries which straddle either side of the prism, and which tell the story of the largest mass genocide in history.
Over the course of an hour, museum-goers journey repeatedly to each side of the long hall, edging ever closer to the daylight at its far end: an outdoor balcony with a sublime view of the city that both Israel and Palestine consider as their rightful capital.
Given the nature of the museum’s route, it was fitting that it was where Micheál Martin began his official three-day visit to the Middle East this week.
The Tánaiste visited the region in his capacity as Minister for Foreign Affairs, positioning himself as an intermediary by speaking to Israeli and Palestinian officials with a view to reviving support for the two-state solution, especially at European Union level.
“I want to continue working, within the EU and more broadly, to promote a renewed effort by the international community to restore a political horizon,” Martin said in a speech to the Israel Council on Foreign Relations at the start of his visit.
“I welcome that Israel has normalised its relations with a number of Arab countries in recent months and years; and I truly hope that these new relationships can also help open new avenues to advance the Israeli-Palestinian issue.”
Yet a resolution to the decades-long conflict between Israel and Palestine seems further away than ever, amid the continued expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, divisions between Palestinian factions and plans for a solution sliding further down the agenda of the United States and other EU countries.
Ireland’s own recent history may provide a roadmap towards the light, but there is a long way to go if one of the world’s most intractable conflicts is to finally reach a resolution.
Martin, of course, knew this already.
In the searing heat of the eastern Mediterranean, the Tánaiste projected a cool, statesmanlike demeanour to cast himself in the role of a modern George Mitchell.
He spent three days urging the need for talks, preaching about the art of dialogue, and acknowledging the surgical effort that it would take to make hope and history rhyme in a way that would draw Israel and Palestine out of the trenches and to the negotiating table.
“It matters to me personally as someone who’s been involved both in foreign policy and in being part of bringing peace to the island of Ireland for the 40 plus years of my political life,” he told the Israel Council on Foreign Relations on Tuesday, impassioned and half-pleading.
He was especially keen to use the visit to press the so-called two-state solution as a path to peace in the region, and for Ireland to lead the way in ensuring the proposal becomes a priority for other EU countries again.
The proposal, versions of which have been on the table since the mid-20th century, envisages the creation of two distinct, independent nations for Israelis and Palestinians west of the Jordan River in territory that is currently under Israeli control or occupation (in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip).
It was first adopted by the United Nations Security Council in 1967 following the Israeli-Arab War, and has been repeatedly endorsed by the UN General Assembly since the 1970s.
However, various diplomatic attempts to see the idea come to fruition have failed, from the Madrid Conference in 1991 and the Oslo Accords two years later, through to unsuccessful peace talks hosted by the Arab League.
Martin’s insistence that the idea can act as a template for Irish history to repeat itself in the Middle East may be misplaced, though he argued otherwise this week.
Hopes for a two-state solution have dwindled in recent years, particularly as a result of the ongoing actions of Israel towards Palestine and encroachment into its territory by Israeli settlers.
Internationally, fatigue has set in among nations who have witnessed no meaningful progress towards peace and who now consider other conflicts such as the war in Ukraine as more pressing.
Many countries with an interest in the region now see the Israel-Palestine issue as one of conflict management, rather than as something that can be resolved.
Within Israel itself, serious doubts remain about the commitment to a two-state solution of the Government.
Current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - the country’s longest-tenured leader - has previously declared that a Palestinian state will not become a reality while he is in charge.
Central to the problem of the proposed two-state solution is the creeping incursion of Israeli settlements into occupied Palestinian territory.
More than 200 settlements have been constructed in the occupied West Bank since 1967, covering more than 10% of its territory. More than 100 of these have legal status under Israeli law.
The official boundaries of settlements are off limits to Palestinians because they are declared by Israel as ‘closed military areas’, even though they are home to more than 600,000 people.
Settlements are also illegal under international law, specifically Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits the transfer of people from an occupying power – in this case Israel – into occupied territory.
“Illegal settlement poses a corrosive threat to Israeli society as a whole, and unless Israeli forces abandon this dominant settler mindset and rightfully treat Palestinians in the occupied territory as protected persons, Israel’s deplorable record in the occupied West Bank will likely deteriorate further in 2023,” a group of UN experts said last year.
“No peaceful settlement [to the conflict] can be pursued under Israel’s repressive occupation: a reality that should be a wake-up call for all decision-makers.”
Martin acknowledged the issue and its detrimental impact upon the possibility for a resolution to the conflict long before his visit to the region this week.
In July, he condemned plans by Israel to approve another 5,500 homes in West Bank settlements as “an obstacle to a just and lasting peace”.
“The only lasting solution to the conflict can be through relaunching meaningful negotiations between the parties on realising a two-State solution,” he said at the time.
But in practice, settlements critically undermine the two-state solution by slowly but surely reducing the amount of space that Palestinians have to live in.
The takeover of land by settlers not only deprives Palestinians of property rights and freedom of movement, but also impacts their ability to live and sustain their livelihoods by denying them access to water needed for things like livestock, irrigation and domestic consumption.
Even outside settlements, a harsh sense of erasure is felt by Palestinians.
On a trip to the ancient city of Lod, near Tel Aviv, where both Jewish and Arab residents live, the Tánaiste was given a tour that included a walk down IDF Street, named after the Israeli Defence Forces, the country’s military.
“Symbolism is so important here; that’s why Arabs would like to keep a sense of ownership,” the guide said, after describing how Arabic signage on shops and other businesses had gradually been removed from the street.
As the number of illegal settlements has grown in recent years, there has also been a sharp escalation in violence by Israel against Palestinians and human rights abuses within the occupied territories.
Last year, 240 Palestinians were killed, including almost 150 in the occupied West Bank, by Israeli forces and settlers - making 2022 the deadliest year since the United Nations began documenting such incidents almost two decades ago.
Figures this year look set to surpass that again: up until the end of May, Israeli forces killed 112 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank alone, more than double the number over the same period in 2022.
The trend has drawn criticism from the UN, international NGOs including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, and the Irish Government.
Israel often responds to such admonishments by labelling Palestinians as terrorists, in what is a wilful misconstruing of the horror of genuine terror attacks on its citizens and the IDF.
Earlier this year, the country’s Foreign Affairs department issued a press release outlining in granular detail the ”91 months of terror” that Israel has experienced at the hands of Palestinians, which it said was “inspired by vicious incitement in Palestinian social and traditional media and urged on by the Palestinian leadership”.
Incidents listed as ‘terror’ include a fire started by rioters at a Jewish holy site and the discovery of three Arab teenagers carrying knives.
While in the occupied West Bank this week, Martin was briefed about how young Palestinians are attacked and killed by the IDF, sometimes for nothing more than throwing stones.
The Tánaiste also met with a father and son from the Bedouin community who had experienced violence at the hands of settlers first hand.
The child described to him how his primary school was attacked by settlers and children “ran for their safety”.
“There seems to be, in the last two years in particular, an increase in the number of these attacks and the number of these violent incidents involving settlers coming into areas and using violence and intimidation to move people off their land,” Martin said, reflecting on what he had heard.
“This is a newer dimension. There is a responsibility on Israel as the occupying power to protect Palestinians in this situation and to ensure the rule of law is applied impartially and objectively and that is a matter of grave concern.”
The day before meeting the child and his father, the Tánaiste had raised similar concerns with Netanyahu hours after visiting the World Holocaust Memorial.
Martin had what he described as a “frank” discussion about Israeli settlements and violence, and said he presented Ireland’s case for the need for Israel to adhere to international law.
During the meeting, Netanyahu also referenced Ireland’s stance on Palestine and the Middle East, as well as Ireland’s domestic media and political coverage of the conflict.
“He just commented on the fact that Ireland has a particular position at various fora and the UN, the ECJ [European Court of Justice] and others [...],” Martin told reporters after the meeting.
“He’s very conscious also of the general commentary in Ireland in relation to Israeli policy towards Palestine.”
Martin was evidently sensitive towards the perception of Ireland in Israel ahead of his visit, and of the need to present himself as a good faith advocate for peace who is as sensitive to Israeli sensibilities as he is to the Palestinian cause.
Ireland’s stance on Palestine is viewed with a high degree of scepticism in Israel, and is repeatedly referenced in Israeli media as “anti-Semitic” or hateful.
The conservative Jersualem Post newspaper has published articles in recent years with titles such as “Irish anti-Israel sentiment almost indivisible from antisemitism”, “Why does Ireland hate Israel?”, and “Ireland’s delusional orgy of criticism of Israel”.
It was possibly with this in mind that the Tánaiste spent much of his first day showcasing his respect for Jewish people – notwithstanding an unfortunate typo in a press release issued to journalists that day in which Martin pledged to underline “Ireland’s strong commitment to anti-Semitism”.
He was noticeably solemn during his visit to the Holocaust museum at Yad Vashem, quietly nodding along to guide Jonathan Matthews (who holds a pHD in Irish literature) as the pair criss-crossed the concrete prism as a shoal of officials and journalists followed behind.
On the few occasions he spoke, Martin mostly asked questions which displayed interest in what he saw; during one section about the Nazis, he reflected on the similarities between Irish and Jewish people, and how both were discriminated against on the grounds of being deemed racially inferior.
Immediately after the completion of the tour, he donned a yarmulke (a skullcap worn by Jewish men) and rekindled the eternal flame in the Hall of Remembrance, before quietly placing a wreath on a stone where the ashes of some Holocaust victims lay.
“It is extremely important that we never forget what happened during the Holocaust,” the Tánaiste said in his speech at the museum, his first of his visit.
“May we also remember the lessons to be learned from the darkest period in human history. It is only through remembrance and education that we can ensure that nothing like the Holocaust can be allowed to happen again.”
But if Martin was deliberate in his respect towards Israel’s Jewish identity, he was assured in the diplomatic balancing act of setting out Ireland’s position on the country’s treatment of Palestinians.
His speech at the Council on Foreign Relations the same evening was a punctiliously constructed argument, pointedly touching on things like Ireland’s response to Ukraine (which contained a reference to respecting “internationally recognised borders”) and the recent Consultative Forum on Neutrality.
“Ireland, as a small and militarily neutral country, our security – indeed, our very existence as a sovereign state – relies on the compliance by all nations, however large or however powerful, with international law and the rules-based order,” he told the assembled audience.
“It is on the basis of this principle that we speak out when we see states acting contrary to international law.
“And it is on the basis of this principle that we are so disheartened that there has been no meaningful progress on the realisation of a just and lasting peace between the Israeli and Palestinian people.”
At the same time, Martin was careful to acknowledge that lasting peace would take two sides to achieve.
The following day, he rejected as unhelpful the use of the term ‘apartheid’ to describe Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, saying that it “doesn’t add a whole lot” to the pursuit of peace.
Nor would he comment during the trip on when Ireland would formally recognise the State of Palestine, a seemingly logical prerequisite for the two-state solution which is contained within the Programme for Government, but one which would doubtlessly anger Israel.
The Tánaiste appeared more at ease on his visit to the West Bank, indicative that he was aware of Ireland’s positive reputation among Palestinians.
During a tour of a school part funded by Irish aid in Ramallah, the administrative capital of Palestine, the region’s acting education minister gushed over Martin’s presence in the West Bank.
“Being Foreign Minister is an art,” Mahmoud Mosa Abu Mouis said, beaming, on a tour of one classroom. “That’s why we’re enjoying this trip.”
Almost playing up to that description, the accolade didn’t stop Martin from treading the middle ground when he felt it was required.
At a press event outside the school, he called on the militant group Hamas, the de facto rulers of the occupied Gaza Strip, to end their campaign of violence, comparing their activities to paramilitaries who were active in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.
He also urged Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority which exercises partial civilian control in the occupied West Bank, to hold democratic elections for the first time since 2006.
Abbas reportedly responded by saying that he could not hold a general election without Jewish people living in East Jerusalem being allowed to vote as well.
“I spoke about our own peace process, which took confidence-building measures on all sides, and how it takes time and persistence, how it also involves taking risks,” Martin told reporters after the meeting.
“I said to President Abbas that there are times when you have to take risks as well in the pursuit of peace.”
At the end of the trip, the Tánaiste signalled that he would present his learnings from the visit to Josep Borrell, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, within the next few weeks.
It’s hoped that Ireland can help to make the resolution of the conflict a priority for other EU member states, with just a handful of countries including Belgium and Luxembourg currently seen as treating it as such.
But Martin also suggested that Ireland has lessons to take on board itself.
“I think in Ireland we must also seek to understand the complexity of the issues here, not just the immediate one of Israel-Palestine, but also the broader regional complexity and the influences that people outside Palestine have,” he said in one of his final statements to the media.
There may be lessons for the Tánaiste too as he considers what steps can be taken next.
When he does so, he might reflect upon the words of Jonathan Matthews, his tour guide at the Holocaust History Museum, as the pair stepped out of the concrete hallway and onto the sunlit balcony overlooking Jerusalem.
“The future is still there,” Matthews told him. “We just need to form it.”
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