(Jewish Group) In Holocaust day speech, Irish president focuses on 'horrific loss of life' in Gaza, sparks protest [View all]

Irish President Michael D. Higgins uses his speech at Ireland’s Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony to discuss the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and praises the “long-overdue ceasefire,” in the Palestinian enclave, leading some to walk out of the room in protest.

Higgins says he believes that the ceasefire and hostage release deal has been welcomed by “those in Israel who mourn their loved ones, those who have been waiting for the release of the hostages,” as well as the “thousands searching for relatives in the rubble” of the Gaza Strip.

Appearing to draw a line between the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust and the war in Gaza, which was sparked by the October 7, 2023, Hamas terror assault in southern Israel, Higgins says: “When wars and conflicts become accepted or presented as seemingly unending, humanity is a loser.”

“War is not the natural condition of humanity. Cooperation is.”

He says that world leaders should be made “acutely aware” of the “complicit actions of silence or the averted gaze of those who, by their indifference, allowed the Holocaust to be planned, prepared and to occur.”

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