By Eileen F. Toplansky | Am Thinker | Dec 28, 2024
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.
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 middlemarch18@gmail.com.
FELIX-
They don’t know their front from their backs about Ireland.
And I’m saying it politely. I’ve heard it said quite differently.
We could regale them with the story about the O’Donnells and the O’Neills the hereditary rulers of Ulster and Donegal, having to leave by lonely ship for abroad, never to return.
Or The Ulster Plantations which is the cause of the Northern Irish unusual accent, and how all the Catholics were cleared out of there.”Ah yes “To Hell or to Connaught” a well known genocidal act.
I think that all these people know about the country is from seeing the film “Elizabeth and Essex:……. Errol Flynn and Bette Davis……….
Not that it changes what I think about the Old Sod Jew-Hatred.
But, facts are facts.
I have always had a soft spot for the Irish. I have always been sympathetic to their struggle for independence from Britain. I believe this struggle has been by and large justified because British rulers have discriminated against the Irish fir hundreds of years, denying them the rights possessed by the English and to a somewhat lesser extent the Scots and Welsh. Also ,because they have long had a sense of national identity that is dfferent from that of the English, and even have a ‘native” language (Irish Gaelic) that is different from English.
This much said, they are also a bunch of antisemitic bastards. This is manifested by their hatred of Israel and their support for the Palestinian terrorists. But also by their having imprisoned for months a rabbi on charges of performing a circumcision, a fundamental ritual of the Jewish religion. How would the Irish feel if some government imprisoned their priests from performing baptisms (actually, the English did forbid Catholic priests in Ireland from performing baptisms, saying mass or performing any other Catholic ceremony, back in the eighteenth century.). You would think that their own experience with religious persecution would make them inclined toward religious tolerance of other faiths. But it has had no such effect on them. They harass their Jewish population–most of whom have fled Ireland because of fears for their safety.
I encountered personally the harassment of the Irish Jewish community in the 1990s, when I spent a summer in Dublin on a scholarship to study for my doctoral dissertation on author and Dublin native Jonathan Swift. I lodged with a Jewish family, who told me how they lived in fear of antisemitic persecution. Their daughter was planning to emigrate to England as a result. I attended one of only two Jewish synagogues in Dublin. I noticed that everyone who entered the shul was checked out, required to show ID, answer some questions, etc by both Dublin police officer (known as a Garde) and a security guard employed by the shul. If anyone had a bag, it was opened and checked.
There was also a self-appointed Catholic missionary who preached Christianity to the people entering the shul even before they were checked out by security. He would preach verbally to the congregants while they were waiting on line to enter the shul, and also handed out missionary leaflets.
@Donaldo
Agreed on all counts.
Edgar
You tell a different story altogether. It’s a pity it’s being wasted on these died in the wool dogmatists on israpundit.
FELIX-
I see you mentioned Benny Briscoe. I knew them all well, Brian his elder brother and I used to go camping and unsuccessful girl chasing. Benny and I used to go up to Belfast—To chase a new selection of gals. Joe used to keep me informed of what was happening there. The father Bobby was an old pal of my beloved father and was a member of our synagogue of which my father was President for 30-40 years,
((((((((((((……It was NOT a Lithuanian Synagogue but a Latvian one. The two communities were very close, being just across the River Dvina from one another….r(((((((((
It is a cultural issue of the first order. As Edgar alone here understands Ireland as an island has been hit from all sides. If you cannot grasp that then you have no business lecturing. A little bit of empathy for Irish might be a useful starting point. The Irish Ambassador who left, well I understand the provocations very well. But maybe just maybe she didn’t get Ireland and Edgar there just showed maybe an alternative approach. Get to know the country, start talking about Ben Brisco and Dev and how the Irish poor were driven to Connaught and the Jews coming from the Holocaust had to drain the swamps and explain mosquitos. Maybe get an Irishman in the embassy with a Fainne in his lapel. And talk about the gaeltacht up there in Gweedore, and how the Irish Hare was fairing, and the cuckoo and the corncrake. The Jews used to hear them once upon a time. Christy Moore might even write a good song if he would lay off his Jew hating. And so on.
This is a very ordinary conglomeration of fact and fantasy, available on the internet from which I believe it was copied word by word.
Firstly, there was NO Irish government until after the Elizabethan Age…LONG after, centuries in fact. They were British “Lord Lieutenants”.
Ireland was always broken up into a few large tracts ruled by powerful chieftains, like the Desmonds, O’Briens, O’Donnells etc. under which many smaller areas were ruled by petty chiefs of Clans, which paid allegiance to the powerful.
Ruled along the coasts by Vikings who founded all the large cities, then the Normans, then and finally the British Crown.
THERE WAS NO IRISH GOVT that the writer talks volubly about.
At one time for many years England’s rule extended only a few score sq. miles around Dublin. called the PALE.
In more modern times Jews were treated just as were English Jews , with a disdainful contempt and bitter Jew-Hate.. I GREW UP UNDER THIS SYSTEM.
From time to time I was asked to prove I had no tiny horns under my wavy hair, nor cloven feet, in that Catholic riddled ignorant country.
Our Community was refused entry into Irish Social Clubs in every aspect. until the mid 20th cent except in Universities. We formed our own.
Anyway what does it matter, Ireland, under a strong inferiority complex is always following the popular lead to raise it’s pseudo-importance in Europe and further afield.
*****It refused entry to Jews fleeing Hitler, Oliver Flanagana Dail member saying they would like to get rid of the Jews they had (under 4000 then)****.
I could go on but I’ve posted on this many times here.
The issue is that Hamas says OMG 50,000 dead, and the dups buy it.
Genocide would be if Israel exterminated all of Gaza inhabitants.
And they continue to ignore Oct 7th 2023. Was that not Genocide?
Is Genocide a proportional number i.e. 80% dead are not in uniform? or Is it percentage of population under attack? or is it a hard number like > 10k?
Let’s not forget that Hamas enjoys 93% support in Gaza. So uniform or not, they are all Hamasholes.
And when you are dealing with a death cult, would it not be seen as public service to push as many of them as possible into Allahs warm loving arms?
Keelie
Is this all you can contribute
Then shut up
“Very simple (and easy for me to say); the Jews remaining in Ireland have little choice but to leave that country. Meanwhile Ireland has been – as far as I know – importing lots of Muslims and they are now starting to do what they do in the rest of the world.
We should let Ireland contend as they see fit…”
Toplansky
Save your tears. What can the Irish people do? What lead will they follow when there is not one party to fight against Antisemitism existing on the island.
And Toplansky you reveal your own bias here
“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.”
And what about the outright Nazis in Ukraine who join with NATO in the Nazi cause.
Look at yourselves American Thinker because you support other Nazis in Europe and Ukraine, really deadly Nazis, real deadly Ukrainian type Nazis who want nuclear war
Very simple (and easy for me to say); the Jews remaining in Ireland have little choice but to leave that country. Meanwhile Ireland has been – as far as I know – importing lots of Muslims and they are now starting to do what they do in the rest of the world.
We should let Ireland contend as they see fit…