Sr Bridget Tighe An Irish nun in the Holy Land has called on the Irish Government to use its influence to help restart the stalled peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.
Sligo-born Sr Bridget Tighe told The Irish Catholic that the underlying problem beneath the current flare up is that “There is no peace process anymore” between both sides.
“Ireland with its own history – we surely have something to say to this long-standing conflict,” Sr Brigid said this week speaking from Jerusalem, where she had gone from Gaza hours before Hamas started firing rockets at Israel.
Pointing to the fact that Ireland is currently a member of the United Nations Security Council, she said the Government “might be able to bring this to the table of the UN”.
This comes following the second week of clashes between Israel and Hamas, the ruling power in the Gaza Strip, leaving over 200 people dead.
Sr Bridget pointed to the fact that when the latest cycle of violence inevitably comes to an end with a ceasefire, the “root cause” of the tensions is never addressed with the emergence of a Palestinian state seemingly as far away as ever.
“This will happen again,” Sr Brigid said, insisting that there will only be progress when “occupation and dispossession” is addressed “with proper peace solutions and borders [otherwise] this constant, every-few-years war will happen”.
Sr Bridget – who heads up the aid agency Caritas Jerusalem – said she would like to see Ireland putting pressure on the United States to breathe new life into the moribund peace process where negotiations have not taken place for many years.
“This is the time to try to bring the international community in…to say this is unsustainable for the future of the state of Israel or for the Palestinians,” Sr Bridget said, warning that the situation could deteriorate further because “desperate people do desperate things”.
“And in a few years, if something isn’t done, there’ll be another uprising, maybe worse than this time because it’ll be in the West Bank and it will be in the state of Israel itself,” Sr Bridget said, cautioning that it could lead to a “civil war”, as alluded to by Israel’s President Reuvin Rivlin.
Meanwhile, Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, head of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land said the only hope for the region is the “two people, two States” approach, advocated by the Holy See.
“A way must be found where all believers of the Holy City are equal citizens, guaranteed and respected and that they feel themselves an integral and constitutive part of the soul of the city and not just guests,” he said.