Reactionary Israeli ministers have ‘fascist’ Gaza agenda, says ex-WHO official Mike Ryan

Right-wing members of the Israeli cabinet are “fascist bastards” because of their actions against Gaza, former senior World Health Organisation (WHO) official, Mike Ryan has said. “I have many Palestinian friends. I have many Israeli friends. And they’re not warmongers, those Israeli friends. They’re not genocide maniacs. A small section of their leadership are fascist bastards,” he told the Patrick MacGill Summer School on Saturday.The Israeli attacks upon Gaza will guarantee future violence, he told the Glenties summer school in Co Donegal, saying that violence “never ends in peace; the aftermath of violence is nearly always more violence. We’ll see that through the decades as we go on. For example, in Palestine, we have a whole generation of children who see nothing but death and see nothing but violence.“No matter what resolution comes, they’re not going to go back to school, and everything is fine, forget about everything. They’re going to be traumatised by that.” READ MOREUrging states to find peaceful ways of existing, the former executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies programme said he had to believe after working “in the United Nations system for 30 years” in co-operation and collective security.“At the height of the Cold War, when people had their fingers on nuclear buttons, and we were going through the Cuban Missile Crisis and into the ’60s, and yet we eradicated smallpox,” he told the audience. “The greatest single feat in the history of medicine and the history of human health. And it was Russian vaccine production with American resources and doctors and nurses from all over the world who came together.”Calling for a more sophisticated understanding of international relations, Ryan acknowledged that many people in the West and elsewhere are afraid of the rise of China.“They [the Chinese] have a long history of resentments for the humiliations that they have suffered. We need to acknowledge that, we need to work with them because the reality is they’re the most powerful economy in the world,” he said. “People are afraid of China now because they have nuclear weapons and they’re aggressive and they’re expansionist. Well, the United States has nuclear weapons and it’s expansionist.”Meanwhile, at the same event, former Department of Health secretary general Rober Watt said parts of Dublin were a “source of embarrassment” to many who live there.Dublin Regeneration Authority chief executive Robert Watt: 'My big idea is that we need to liberate local government.' He argued the State’s local authorities should get borrowing powers and rights to raise extra local taxes, while some should be merged to act more efficiently.Calling for a public debate on local government, Watt noted that local authorities accounted for just one-tenth of all the State’s spending. “Half of that revenue is centrally provided. Even the half which is local, local government has very little control over many of the rules about how they collect that,” he said. “My big idea is that we need to liberate local government. I think we need to give them more functions. I think they need to get more financing, local financing, the power to raise more money locally. They need to be able to borrow.” Talented local officials were close to the problems in their communities, he said and should be given more trust. Currently, many of them are “completely hamstrung by the lack of funding, by their inability to borrow, by rules and regulations”, said Watt, who was recently appointed as the chief executive of the Dublin Regeneration Authority.A key part of his new role will be to lead a rebirth in the fortunes of Dublin’s main thoroughfare, O’Connell Street, which has fallen sharply into decline.Dublin city centre, he said, had been in decline for some time. “And frankly, for those of us who live in the city or visit the city or work there, parts of it is a source of embarrassment.” O’Connell Street “was a fantastic boulevard, and people compare it to some of the more famous boulevards across Europe, and it was a fantastic street to be proud of, and it’s beautiful architecture. But it has gone into decline ... So I think we’re determined that we will fix it.”