Ireland versus Israel

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Image: AlmazUK via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.

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Relations between the Emerald Isle and the Jewish state are deteriorating fast.

Jews first came to Ireland in 1079.  But when Britain expelled all of its Jews in 1290, the Jews of Ireland were forced to leave.  A small number returned in the late 15th century as refugees from the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal.  In the 1700s, the synagogue in Dublin was forced to close.  In fact, “contributing to the closure may have been the government’s refusal to grant citizenship to Jews, despite other bills that gave citizenship to other foreign nationals.”

In the early 1920s and 1930s, Irish sympathies lay squarely with the Zionists and drew heavily on the presumed parallels between historical Irish and Jewish suffering.

Before 1948, “the Irish Jewish community, which had come overwhelmingly from Lithuania in the period from 1880 to 1914, was one of the most pro-Zionist in Western Europe and a major per capita supporter of the Jewish National Fund (JNF), as well as other Zionist organizations and institutions.”

But Irish nationalist perceptions toward Israel shifted, and Ireland became increasingly preoccupied with the fate of the Palestinian Arab refugees.

As a result, Ireland failed to give de jure recognition to Israel until 1963, some fifteen years after Israel’s declaration of independence.

In February 1980, Ireland was the first European Union member to call for the establishment of a Palestinian state.  Furthermore, in December 1993, Ireland was the last to allow Israel to open a residential embassy.  Moreover, Ireland prevented the European Union from declaring Hezb’allah a terrorist organization.

Throughout the Oslo Accords era and beyond, Irish governments continued with unlimited support to the Palestinians.  In fact, Ireland has “one of the most organized and effective chapters of the international Palestine Solidarity Campaign whose goal is to isolate and delegitimize Israel, including an attempt to get Aer Lingus to cancel flights to Israel.”

According to Rory Miller, “Yasser Arafat, who had long ago mastered the art of telling audiences what they wanted to hear did not miss the opportunity to appeal to Irish sensibilities over Jerusalem during his 1993 speech before the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Community.  He stressed that ‘when we [the Palestinians] speak about Jerusalem … you the Irish people can understand our position.  This touches your hearts as it touches mine.  Jerusalem is terra sancta.”[1]

In fact, the Irish presidency was quite vocal about the so-called “illegality of [Israeli] settlement activity.”

Even as relations between Ireland and Israel worsened, it was asserted, however, that

Ireland [was] a good case study to prove that no matter how bad political relations are, these do not necessarily impact negatively on bilateral economic relations. It is also a good case study to demonstrate that however good economic relations are, these do not improve the political relationship.

Consequently, many Irish politicians believed “that Israel [had] much to offer their country in the economic field and thus [thought] Ireland should not burn its bridges with it.”

Yet, in 2017, Ireland held a “pseudo-academic anti-Israel hate fest,” which, as Denis MacEoin describes, was

not [to] be an academic conference in any real sense of the word. It [was], from the outset, a hate-fest of international anti-Zionist, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic rhetoric and distortion. It [was] totally without balance. How do we know this? First, because a significant majority of the participants … made no secret of their support for the boycott of Israeli academics.

In 2019, Peter Baum highlighted “how Ireland’s indignation and legislation banning the import of goods from Israeli communities located beyond the 1949 armistice lines constituted a breach of European trade law.”

In 2021, Lawrence Franklin maintained that the Jew-hatred from Ireland

does not well up from the general public but seems clearly driven from the top down. These Goebbels-like attacks on Israel include salvos from several Sinn Fein members of parliament. One of them, Martin Browne, represents Tipperary and claims, falsely, that Israel created ISIS. Another, Matt Carthy representing Cavan-Monahan, has stated that Israel is the worst human rights offender on earth — presumably dwarfing China, North Korea, Venezuela and Iran.

Thus, the fewer than 2,000 Irish Jews remaining in the country expressed concern about degrading Ireland-Israel ties.

And now it can be asserted that the antisemitism of Irish leaders has thrown their own economic interests to the wind.  It has now reached the point where relations between the two countries are simply untenable.

As Hugh Fitzgerald succinctly puts it, “Ireland has been overtaken by the virus of antisemitism.”

Over the years, while Ireland asserted the right of Israel to live in peace and security, this was “frequently regarded in Israel as nothing more than lip-service to Israel’s security concerns.”

In fact, Ireland does not appear to realize that it has just “strengthened the terrorists” in Ireland.  The Irish have decided that they are “willing to overlook, submit to, or even condone terrorism” as they recognize a Palestinian state and continue their hostility toward Israel.

Accordingly, the “Irish government has chosen to join South Africa in its charge against Israel at the International Court of Justice hoping to have the tiny and embattled Jewish state declared guilty of ‘genocide.’”

A few weeks after the heinous and well documented October 7 pogrom in Israel, the Irish parliament passed a motion declaring that “genocide is being perpetrated before our eyes by Israel in Gaza.”

In an Orwellian perversion of major proportions,

The Irish government has expanded the definition of what constitutes “genocide.” Now it appears to mean something rather vague — “killing too many civilians in a war than we deem necessary,” and your intent, or lack of it, no longer matters; you can still be declared “guilty of genocide.” Using that definition, both the US, with its atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the UK, with the firebombing of German cities such as Dresden by the UK’s “Bomber” Harris, are both guilty of “genocide.”

Henceforth, “Israel has closed its Dublin embassy in fury at Ireland’s attempt to gerrymander international law.”

In other words, Ireland is seeking to convict Israel for a crime that currently doesn’t even exist in international law. This is reminiscent of the Soviet Union, where the chief of Stalin’s secret police, Lavrentiy Beria, said: “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.”

The Irish prime minister, Simon Harris, claimed that Ireland isn’t anti-Israel but is “pro-peace, pro-human rights and pro-international law.”  Yet he failed even to refer to Oct. 7 and the plight of the Israeli hostages.  Instead, he baselessly accused Israel of “killing children” and causing civilian deaths on a “reprehensible” scale and claimed falsely that Gazans have been left to starve with humanitarian aid failing to flow.

In essence, “[w]hat the Irish want is a definition of genocide so broad that it will fit Israel’s war in Gaza.  This, despite the fact that the Israel Defense Forces make tremendous efforts to minimize civilian casualties by warning civilians away from areas or buildings about to be targeted.”

But nothing matters to those whose hatred for Israel and Jews permeates their souls.

And by the way, this will be bad news for trade for the Irish, who “need Israeli chip technology more than Israel needs Irish butter.”

And what of the other Israeli advances, such as artificial intelligence, medical devices, and weapons technology that will no longer be available because of Ireland’s latest diatribe?

But this is the outcome as Ireland’s anti-Israel animus reveals itself.  It is the predictable end result of the manipulation of language, the ongoing lies, distortions, and massive rewriting of history through simplistic images by ill informed journalists and hate-filled politicians.

Indeed, the Emerald Isle continues to irrevocably besmirch itself.

Eileen can be reached at [email protected].

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Image: AlmazUK via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.

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Image: AlmazUK via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.