I wish to respond to the op-ed by Diarmuid Doyle in the Sunday Tribune, (News, 22 February), criticising The Irish Times' op-ed of Ambassador Evrony of 20 February.

Three characteristics stand out in Doyle's article. Firstly, there is disingenuousness. Doyle misrepresents statements in Evrony's op-ed. The ambassador did not deny that phosphorous was used by the Israeli Defence Forces; rather he quoted the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Jacob Kellenberger, as saying that there was no evidence for its illegal use. Phosphorous, for screening and illumination, is a perfectly legitimate military material, used by many armies throughout the world including Nato.

A second characteristic is naivety. Nowhere in his op-ed does Doyle write of the broader context for what recently occurred in Gaza. Elementary facts of the 'broader context' include the following: that Hamas is a terrorist organisation recognised as such by the international community; that it is imbued with a radical worldview including dedication in its charter to destroying Israel; that it is characterised by ruthless intolerance of other Palestinians and a devotion to violence; that Hamas is armed and sponsored by Iran which calls for Israel to be destroyed and is fast acquiring nuclear capability; that Hamas murdered hundreds of innocent Israeli civilians in suicide bombings since the 1990s; that it bombarded southern Israel for eight years in 2001-08 inclusive with more than 8,000 rockets and mortars; that during the Gaza military operation, Hamas deliberately placed Gazan civilians in harm's way such as by booby-trapping civilian neighbourhoods, storing arsenals and munitions in mosques, schools and residential buildings and firing from such places, knowing well that Israel would be hesitant to target such places and that if it did then the civilian casualties would be blamed on Israel – swaying Western journalists such as Doyle.

A third characteristic is innuendo: "…without wishing to conjure up memories of a recent Oireachtas performance by Aengus Ó Snodaigh, that any propagandist worth his salt would have been proud of Evrony..." If he wishes to repeat Ó Snodaigh's gross comparison of Evrony and Deputy Alan Shatter to Josef Goebbels, the infamous propagandist of the Nazi genocidal regime which exterminated six million Jews and millions of other European civilians, why not have the courage to say so directly – "…without wishing to…"?

In short, Doyle's op-ed is unfortunately typical of the widespread misinformation or maybe naivety, prejudice or lack of broader perspective, about the Middle East and European history.

Dr Derek O'Flynn,

Press officer,

Embassy of Israel.